LORD BEAUPR&

THE VISITS

THE WHEEL OF TIME
AND OTHER TALES

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LORD BEAUPRE

THE VISITS
THE WHEEL OF TIME

AND OTHER TALES

BY

HENRY JAMES

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
T 9 7 3

COPYRIGHT

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

NOTE

Of the stories collected in this volume, in which
the series of those excluded from the “ New York ”
edition is continued, the first lour appeared in The
Private Life (1893), “Glasses” in Embarrassments
(1896), “The Tone of Time” in The Better Sort
(1903), and the rest in The Soft Side (1900).

P. L.

CONTENTS

LORD BEAUPR& .

I'Alih

I

THE VISITS

73

THE WHEEL OF TIME .

■ 95

COLLABORATION

• 155

CLASSES

. 1 85

THE GREAT CONDITION

255

THE GIVEN CASE

• 3ii

JOHN DELAVOY

• 35 1

T HE THIRD PERSON ....

401

THE TONE OF TIME ....

• 447

vii

LORD BEAUPRfi

I

Some reference had been made to Northerley, which
was within an easy drive, and Firminger described
how he had dined there the night before and had
found a lot of people. Mrs. Ashbury, one of the two
visitors, inquired who these people might be, and he
mentioned half-a-dozen names, among which was that
of young Raddle, which had been a good deal on
people’s lips, and oven in the newspapers, on the
occasion, still recent, of his stepping into the fortune,
exceptionally vast even as the product of a patent-
glue, left him by a father whose ugly name on all the
vacant spaces of the world had exasperated genera-
tions of men.

” Oh, is he there ? ” asked Mrs. Ashbury, in a tone
which might have been taken as a vocal rendering of
the act of pricking up one's cars. She didn't hand
on the information to her daughter, who was talking
— »if a beauty of so few phrases could have been said
to talk — with Mary Gosselin, but in the course of a
few moments she put down her teacup witii a failure
of suavity and, getting up, gave the girl a poke with
her parasol. “ Come, Maud, wc must be stirring.”

” You pay us a very short visit,” said Mrs. Gosse-
lin, intensely demure over the fine web of her knitting.
Mrs. Ashbury looked hard for an instant into her
bland eyes, then she gave poor Maud another poke.
She alluded to a reason and expressed regrets ; but

3

LORD BEAUPRE

she got her daughter into motion, and Guy Firminger
passed through the garden with the two ladies^ to put
them into their carriage. Mrs. Ashbury protested
particularly against any further escort. While he
was absent the other parent and child, sitting together
on their pretty lawn in the yellow light of the August
afternoon, talked of the frightful way Maud Ashbury
had “gone off,” and of something else as to which there
was more to say when their third visitor came back.

" Don’t think me grossly inquisitive if I ask you
where they told the coachman to drive,” said Mary
Gosselin as the young man dropped, near her, into a
low wicker chair, stretching his long legs as if he had
been one of the family.

Firminger stared. “ Upon my word I didn't
particularly notice, but I think the old lady said
' Home.’ ”

“ There, mamma dear ! ” the girl exclaimed
triumphantly.

But Mrs. Gosselin only knitted on, persisting in
profundity. She replied that “ Home ” was a feint,
that Mrs. Ashbury would already have given another
order, and that it was her wish to hurry off to
Northerley that had made her keep them from going
with her to the carriage, in which they would have
seenuher take a suspected direction. Mary explained
to Guy Firminger that her mother had perceived poor
Mrs. Ashbury to be frantic to reach the house at which
she had heard that Mr. Raddle was staying, the
young man stared again and wanted to know what
she desired to do with Mr. Raddle. Mary replied that
her mother would tell him what Mrs. Ashbury desired
to do with poor Maud.

“ What all Christian mothers desire,” said Mrs.
Gosselin. “ Only she doesn't know how.”

“ To marry the dear child to Mr. Raddle,” Mary
added, smiling.

4

LORD BEAUPRE

Firminger’s vagueness expanded with the subject.
“ Do you mean you want to marry your dear child
to that little cad ? ” he asked of the cider lady.

" I speak of the general duty — ftot of the particular
case,” said Mrs. Gosselin.

“ Mamma does know how,” Mary went on.

" Then why ain’t you married ? ”

“ Because we’re not acting, like the Ashburys,
with injudicious precipitation. Is that correct ? ”
the girl demanded, laughing, of her mother.

" Laugh at me, my dear, as much as you like —
it’s very lucky you’ve got me,” Mrs. Gosselin declared.

” She means I can’t manage for myself,” said
Mary to the visitor.

“ What nonsense you talk ! ” Mrs. Gosselin mur-
mured, counting stitches.

” I can’t, mamma, I can't ; I admit it,” Mary
continued.

" But injudicious precipitation and — what’s the
other thing ? — creeping prudence, seem to come out
in very much the same place,” the young man
objected.

" Do you mean since I too wither on the tree ? ”

" It only comes back to saying how hard it is
nowadays to marry one’s daughters,” said the lucid
Mrs. Gosselin, saving Firminger, however, the trouble
of an ingenious answer. “ I don't contend that, at
tljc best, it's easy.”

But Guy Firminger would not have struck you
as capable of much conversational effort as he lounged
there in the summer softness, with ironic familiarities,
like one of the old friends who rarely deviate into
sincerity. He was a robust but loose-limbed young
man, with a well-shaped head and a face smooth,, fair
and kind. He was in knickerbockers, and his clothes,
which had seen service, were composed of articles that
didn't match. His laced boots were dusty — he had

5

LORD BEAUPRE

evidently walked a certain distance ; an indication
confirmed by the lingering, sociable way in which, in
his basket-seat, he jilted himself towards Mary Gosse-
lin. It pointed to a pleasant reason for a long walk.
This young lady, of five-and-twenty, had black hair
and blue eyes ; a combination often associated with
the effect of beauty. The beauty in this case, how-
ever, was dim and latent, not vulgarly obvious ; and
if her height and slenderness gave that impression of
length of line which, as we know, is the fashion, Mary
Gosselin had on the other hand too much expression
to be generally admired. Every one thought her
intellectual ; a few of the most simple-minded even
thought her plain. What Guy Firminger thought —
or rather what he took for granted, for he was not
built up on depths of reflexion — will probably appear
from this narrative.

“ Yes indeed ; things have come to a pass that’s
awful for us," the girl announced.

" For us, you mean,” said Firminger. “ Wc’rc
hunted like the ostrich ; we’re trapped and stalked
and run to earth. We go in fear — 1 assure you we
do.”

“ Are you hunted, Guy ? ” Mrs. Gosselin asked
with an inflexion of her own.

“Yes, Mrs. Gosselin, even moi qui vous parle, the
ordinary male of commerce, inconceivable as it may
appear. I know something about it.”

” And of whom do you go in fear ? ” Mary Gosselin
took up an uncut book and a paper-knife which she
had laid down on the advent of the other visitors.

” My dear child, of Diana and her nymphs, of the
spinster at large. She’s always out with her rifle.
And it isn’t only that ; you know there's always a
second gun, a walking arsenal, at her heels. I forget,
for the moment, who Diana's mother was, and the
genealogy of the nymphs ; but not only do the old

6

LORD BEAUPRE

ladies know the younger ones are out, they distinctly
go with them.”

“ Who was Diana’s mother, my dear ? ” Mrs.
Gosselin inquired of her daughter.'

" She was a beautiful old lady with pink ribbons
in her cap and a genius for knitting,” the girl replied,
cutting her book.

“ Oh, I’m not speaking of yon two dears ; you’re
not like any one else; you're an immense comfort,”
said Guy Firminger. “ But they've reduced it to a
science, and 1 assure you that if one were any one
in particular, if one were not protected by one's
obscurity, one’s life would be a burden. Upon my
honour one wouldn’t escape. I’ve seen it. I’ve
watched them. Look at poor Beaupre — look at
little Raddle over there. 1 object to him, but I
bleed for him.”

'' Lord Beaupre won't marry again,” said Mrs.
Gosselin with an air of conviction.

” So much the worse for him ! ”

” Come — that's a concession to our charms ! ”
Mary laughed.

But the ruthless young man explained away his
concession. " I mean that to be married’s the only
protection — or else to be engaged.”

“ To be permanently engaged— wouldn’t that
do ? ” Mary Gosselin asked.

Beautifully — I would tty it if I were a parti.”

"And how's the little boy?-” Mrs. Gosselin pres-
ently inquired.

” What little boy ? ”

“ Your little cousin —Lord Beaupre’s child : isn’t
it a boy ? ”

” Oh, poor little beggar, he isn’t up to much.
He was awfully cut up by scarlet fever.”

” You’re not the rose indeed, but you’re tolerably
near it,” the elder lady presently continued.

7

LORD BEAUPRE

" What do you call near it ? Not even in the
same garden — not in any garden at all, alas ! "

“ There are three lives — but after all ! "

" Dear lady, don't be homicidai ! "

“ What do you call the ' rose ' ? " Mary asked of
her mother.

" The title," said Mrs. Gosselin, promptly but
softly.

Something in her tone made Firminger laugh
aloud. "You don't mention the property.”

" Oh, I mean the whole thing."

" Is the property very large ? " said Mary Gosselin.

“ Fifty thousand a year," her mother responded ;
at which the young man laughed out again.

“ Take care, mamma, or we shall be thought to
be out with our guns ! " the girl interposed ; a re-
commendation that drew from Guy Firminger the
just remark that there would be time enough for this
when his prospects should be worth speaking of.
He leaned over to pick up his hat and stick, as if it
were his time to go, but he didn’t go for another
quarter of an hour, and during these minutes his
prospects received some frank consideration. He
was Lord Beaupre's first cousin, and the three inter-
vening lives were his lordship's own, that of his little
sickly son, and that of his uncle the Major, who was
also Guy’s uncle and with whom the young man was
at present staying. It was from homely Trist, the
Major’s house, that he had walked over to Mrs.
Gosselin’s. Frank Firminger, who had married in
youth a woman with something of her own and
eventually left the army, had nothing but girls, but
he was only of middle age and might possibly still
have a son. At any rate his life was a very good
one. Bcaupre might marry again, and, marry or not,
he was barely thirty-three and might live to a great
age. The child, moreover, poor little devil, would

8

LORD BEAUPRE

doubtless, with the growing consciousness of an
incentive (there was none like feeling you were in
people’s way), develop a capacity for duration ; so
that altogether Guy professed hinfcelf, with the best
will in the world, unable to take a rosy view of the
disappearance of obstacles. He treated the subject
with a jocularity that, in view of the remoteness of
his chance, was not wholly tasteless, and the dis-
cussion, between old friends and in the light of this
extravagance, was less crude than perhaps it sounds.
The young man quite declined to see any latent
brilliancy in his future. They had all been lashing
him up, his poor dear mother, his uncle Frank, and
Bcaupr£ as well, to make that future political ; but
even if he should get in (he was nursing- -oh, so
languidly ! — a possible opening) , it would only be into
the shallow edge of the stream. He would stand there
like a tall idiot with the water up to his ankles. He
didn’t know how to swim — in that element ; he didn't
know how to do anything.

“ I think you’re very perverse, my dear,” said
Mrs. Gosselin. “I’m sure you have great dis-
positions.”

“ For what — except for sitting here and talking
with you and Mary ? I revel in this sort of thing,
but I scarcely like anything else.”

“ You’d do very well if you weren’t so lazy,” Mary
s^d. “ I believe you’re the very laziest person in
the world.”

“So do I — the very laziest in the world,” the
young man contentedly replied. “ But how can I
regret it, when it keeps me so quiet, when (I might
even say) it makes me so amiable ? ”

“ You'll have, one of these days, to get over your
quietness, and perhaps even a little over your ami-
ability,” Mrs. Gosselin sagaciously stated.

“ I devoutly hope not.”

9

LORD BEAUPRE

" You’ll have to perform the duties of your posi-
tion.”

" Do you mean keep my stump of a broom in
order and my crossing irreproachable ? ”

"You may say what you like ; you will be a
parti,” Mrs. Gosselin continued.

" Well, then, if the worst comes to the worst I
shall do what I said just now : I shall get some good
plausible girl to see me through.”

" The proper way to ‘ get ’ her will be to marry
her. After you’re married you won’t be a parli .”

" Dear mamma, he’ll think you’re already levelling
your rifle ! ” Mary Gosselin laughingly wailed.

Guy Firminger looked at her a moment. " I say,
Mary, wouldn’t you do ? ”

" For the good plausible girl ? Should I be
plausible enough ? ”

" Surely — what could be more natural ? Every-
thing would seem to contribute to the suitability of
our alliance. I should be known to have known you
for years — from childhood's sunny hour ; I should be
known to have bullied you, and even to have been
bullied by you, in the period of pinafores. My relations
from a tender age with your brother, which led to our
schoolroom romps in holidays and to the happy foot-
ing on which your mother has always been so good
as to receive me here, would add to all the pre-
sumptions of intimacy. People would accept such
a conclusion as inevitable.”

" Among all your reasons you don’t mention the
young lady's attractions,” said Mary Gosselin.

Firminger stared a moment, his clear eye lighted
by his happy thought. " I don't mention the young
man’s. They would be so obvious, on one side and
the other, as to be taken for granted.”

" And is it your idea that one should pretend to
be engaged to you all one’s life ? ”
io

LORD BEAUPRE

" Oh no, simply till I should have had time to
look round. I’m determined not to be hustled and
bewildered into matrimony — to be dragged to the
shambles before I know where I arft. With such an
arrangement as the one I speak of 1 should be able
to take my time, to keep my head, to make my
choice.”

“ And how would the young lady make hers ? ”

“ How do you mean, hers ? ”

” The selfishness of men is something exquisite.
Suppose the young lady— if it’s conceivable that
you should find one idiotic enough to be a party to
such a transaction — suppose the poor girl herself
should happen to wish to be really engaged ? ”

Guy Firminger thought a moment, with his slow
but not stupid smile. “ Do you mean to me ? ”

” To you — or to some one else.”

" Oh, if she’d give me notice I’d let her off.”

" Let her off till you could find a substitute ? ”

” Yes — but I confess it would be a great incon-
venience. People wouldn’t take the second one so
seriously.”

“ She would have to make a sacrifice ; she would
have to wait till you should know where you were,”
Mrs. Gossclin suggested.

“ Yes, but where would her advantage come in ? ”
Mary persisted.

•” Only in the pleasure of charity ; the moral
satisfaction of doing a fellow a good turn,” said
Firminger.

"You must think people are keen to oblige you ! ”

" Ah, but surely I could count on you, couldn’t
I ? ” the young man asked.

Mary had finished cutting her book ; she got up
and flung it down on the tea-table. “ What a pre-
posterous conversation ! ” she exclaimed with force,
tossing the words from her as she tossed her book ;
ii

LORD BEAUPRE'

and, looking round her vaguely a moment, without
meeting Guy Firminger’s eye, she walked away to
the house.

Firminger sat hatching her ; then he said serenely
to her mother : " Why has our Mary left us ? "

“ She has gone to get something, I suppose."

“ What has she gone^to get ? "

" A little stick to beat you perhaps."

“ You don’t mean I’ve been objectionable ? "

“ Dear, no — I’m joking. One thing is very
certain," pursued Mrs. Gosselin ; “ that you ought
to work — to try to get on exactly as if nothing could
ever happen. Oughtn’t you ? " She threw off the
question mechanically as her visitor continued silent.

“ I’m sure she doesn’t like it ! ’’ he exclaimed, with-
out heeding her appeal.

“ Doesn’t like what ? "

“ My free play of mind. It’s perhaps too much
in the key of our old romps."

“ You’re very clever ; she always likes that,” said
Mrs, Gosselin. "You ought to go in for something
serious, for something honourable," she continued,
“ just as much as if you had nothing at all to look to."

" Words of wisdom, dear Mrs. Gosselin," Firminger
replied, rising slowly from his relaxed attitude. ,r But
what have I to look to ? "

She raised her mild, deep eyes to him as he stood
before her — she might have been a fairy godmother.
" Everything ! ”

“ But you know I can’t poison them ! "

" That won’t be necessary.”

He looked at her an instant ; then with a laugh :
" One might think you would undertake it ! "

“ I almost would — for yon. Good-bye."

“ Take care — if they should be carried off ! ’’
But Mrs. Gosselin only repeated her good-bye, and
the young man departed before Mary had come back.

12

II

Nearly two years after Guy Firminger had spent
that friendly hour in Mrs. Gosselin’s little garden in
Hampshire this far-seeing woman was enabled (by
the return of her son, who at New York, in an English
bank, occupied a position they all rejoiced over — to
such great things might it duly lead) to resume
possession, for the season, of the little London house
which her husband had left her to inhabit, but which
her native thrift, in determining her to let it for a
term, had converted into a source of income. Hugh
Gosselin, who was thirty years old, and at twenty-
three, before his father’s death, had been despatched
to America to exert himself, was understood to be
doing very well-— so well that his devotion to the
interests of his employers had been rewarded, for the
first time, with a real holiday. He was to remain in
England from May to August, undertaking, as he said,
to. make it all right if during this time his mother
should occupy (to contribute to his entertainment)
the habitation in Chester Street. He was a small,
preoccupied young man, with a sharpness as acquired
as a new hat ; he struck his mother and sister as
intensely American. For the first few days after his
arrival they were startled by his intonations, though
they admitted that they had had an escape when he
reminded them that he might have brought with him
an accent embodied in a wife.

13

LORD BEAUPRE '

“ When you do take one,” said Mrs. Gosselin,
who regarded such an accident, over there, as in-
evitable, " you must charge her high for it.”

It was not witfh this question, however, that the
little family in Chester Street was mainly engaged,
but with the last incident in the extraordinary
succession of events which, like a chapter of romance,
had in the course of a few months converted their
vague and impecunious friend into a personage envied
and honoured. It was as if a blight had been cast
on all Guy Firminger’s hindrances. On the day
Hugh Gosselin sailed from New York the delicate
little boy at Bosco had succumbed to an attack of
diphtheria. His father had died of typhoid the previous
winter at Naples ; his uncle, a few weeks later, had
had a fatal accident in the hunting-field. So strangely,
so rapidly had the situation cleared up, had his fate
and theirs worked for him. Guy had opened his eyes
one morning to an earldom which carried with it a
fortune not alone nominally but really great. Mrs.
Gosselin and Mary had not written to him, but they
knew he was at Bosco ; he had remained there after
the funeral of the late little lord. Mrs. Gosselin, who
heard everything, had heard somehow that he was
behaving with the greatest consideration, giving the
guardians, the trustees, whatever they were called,
plenty of time to do everything. Everything was
comparatively simple ; in the absence of collaterals
there were so few other people concerned. The
principal relatives were poor Frank Firminger’s widow
and her girls, who had seen themselves so near to new
honours and comforts. Probably the girls would
expect their cousin Guy to marry one of them, and
think it the least he could decently do ; a view the
young man himself (if he were very magnanimous)
might possibly embrace. The question would be
whether he would be very magnanimous. These
14

LORD BEAUPR£

young ladies exhausted in their three persons the
numerous varieties of plainness. On the other hand
Guy Firminger — or Lord Beaupre, as one would have
to begin to call him now — was unmistakably kind.
Mrs. Gosselin appealed to her son as to whether their
noble friend were not unmistakably kind.

“ Of course I’ve known him always, and that time
he came out to America — when was it ? four years
ago — I saw him every day. I like him awfully and
all that, but since you push me, you know,” said
Hugh Gosselin, “ I'm bound to say that the first thing
to mention in any description of him would be — if
you wanted to be quite correct — that he’s unmistak-
ably selfish.”

" I see — I see,” Mrs. Gosselin unblushingly replied.
“ Of course I know what you mean,” she added in a
moment. “ But is he any more so than any one else ?
livery one’s unmistakably selfish.”

“ Every one but you and Mary,” said the young
man.

" And you, dear ! ” his mother smiled. “ But a
person may be kind, you know — mayn’t he ? — at
the same time that he is selfish. There are different
sorts.”

“ Different sorts of kindness ? ” Hugh Gosselin
asked with a laugh ; and the inquiry undertaken by
his mother occupied them for the moment, demand-
ing a subtlety of treatment from which they were not
conscious of shrinking, of which rather they had an
idea that they were perhaps exceptionally capable.
They came back to the temperate view that Guy
would never put himself out, would probably never
do anything great, but might show himself all the
same a delightful member of society. Yes, he was
probably selfish, like other people ; but unlike most
of them he was, somehow, amiably, attachingly,
sociably, almost lovably selfish. Without doing any-
15

LORD BEAUPRE

thing great he would yet be a great success — a big,
pleasant, gossiping, lounging, and, in its way, doubt-
less very splendid presence. ‘ He would have no
ambition, and it Was ambition that made selfishness
ugly. Hugh and his mother were sure of this last
point until Mary, before whom the discussion, when
it reached this stage, happened to be carried on,
checked them by asking whether that, on the contrary,
were not just what was supposed to make it fine.

“ Oh, he only wants to be comfortable," said her
brother ; “ but he does want it ! "

“ There’ll be a tremendous rush for him," Mrs.
Gosselin prophesied to her son.

" Oh, he’ll never marry. It will be too much
trouble."

“ It’s done here without any trouble — for the men.
One sees how long you’ve been out of the country.”

" There was a girl in New York whom he might
have married — he really liked her. But he wouldn’t
turn round for her."

“ Perhaps she wouldn’t turn round for him,” said
Mary.

" I daresay she’ll turn round now,” Mrs. Gosselin
rejoined ; on which Hugh mentioned that there was
nothing to be feared from her, all her revolutions had
been accomplished. He added that nothing would
make any difference — so intimate was his conviction
that Beaupre would preserve his independence.

“ Then 1 think he's not so selfish as you say,"
Mary declared ; “or at any rate one will never
know whether he is. Isn’t married life the great
chance to show it ? ”

“ Your father never showed it,” said Mrs. Gosselin ;
and as her children were silent in presence of this
tribute to the departed she added, smiling : " Perhaps
you think that 1 did ! " They embraced her, to
indicate what they thought, and the conversation
16

LORD BEAUPRE

ended, when she had remarked that Lord Beaupr6
was a man who would be perfectly easy to manage
after marriage, with Hugh’s exclaiming that this
was doubtless exactly why he wfshed to keep out
of it.

Such was evidently his wish, as they were able to
judge in Chester Street when he came up to town.
He appeared there oftener than was to have been
expected, not taking himself in his new character
at all too seriously to find stray half-hours for old
friends. It was plain that he was going to do just
as he liked, that he was not a bit excited or uplifted
by his change of fortune. Mary Gosselin observed
that he had no imagination — she even reproached
him with the deficiency to his face ; an incident
which showed indeed how little seriously she took
him. He had no idea of playing a part, and yet he
would have been clever enough. He wasn’t even
systematic about being simple ; his simplicity was
a series of accidents and indifferences. Never was
a man more conscientiously superficial. There were
matters on which he valued Mrs. Gosselin’s judgement
and asked her advice — without, as usually appeared
later, ever taking it ; such questions, mainly, as the
claims of a predecessor’s servants, and those, in
respect to social intercourse, of the clergyman's
family. He didn’t like his parson — what was a
fellow to do when he didn’t like his parson ? What
he did like was to talk with Hugh about American
investments, and it was amusing to Hugh, though
he tried not to show his amusement, to find himself
looking at Guy Firminger in the light of capital. To
Mary he addressed from the first the oddest snatches
of confidential discourse, rendered in fact, however,
by the levity of his tone, considerably less confidential
than in intention. He had something to tell her
that he joked about, yet without admitting that it
17 c

LORD BEAUPRE

was any less important for being laughable. It was
neither more nor less than that Charlotte Firminger,
the eldest of his late uncle’s four girls, had designated
to him in the clearest manner the person she considered
he ought to marry. She appealed to his sense of
justice, she spoke and wrote, or at any rate she looked
and moved, she sighed and sang, in the name of
common honesty. He had had four letters from her
that week, and to his knowledge there were a series
of people in London, people she could bully, whom
she had got to promise to take her in for the season.
She was going to be on the spot, she was going to
follow him up. He took his stand on common
honesty, but he had a mortal horror of Charlotte.
At the same time, when a girl had a jaw like that
and had marked you — really marked you, mind, you
felt your safety oozing away. He had given them
during the past three months, all those terrible girls,
every sort of present that Bond Street could supply :
but these demonstrations had only been held to
constitute another pledge. Therefore what was a
fellow to do ? Besides, there were other portents ;
the air was thick with them, as the sky over battle-
fields was darkened by the flight of vultures. They
were flocking, the birds of prey, from every quarter,
and every girl in England, by Jove ! was going to
be thrown at his head. What had he done to dc^'Tve
such a fate ? He wanted to stop in Englan 1 and
see all sorts of things through ; but how could lie
stand there and face such a charge ? Yet what
good would it do to bolt ? Wherever he should go
there would be fifty of them there first. On his
honour he could say that he didn’t deserve it ; he
had never, to his own sense, been a flirt, such a flirt
at least as to have given any one a handle. He
appealed candidly to Mary Gosselin to know whether
his past conduct justified such penalties. “ Have I
18

LORD BEAUPRE

been a flirt ? — have I given any one a handle ? ” he
inquired with pathetic intensity.

She met his appeal by declaring that he had been
awful, committing himself right £nd left ; and this
manner of treating his affliction contributed to the
sarcastic publicity (as regarded the little house in
Chester Street) which presently became its natural
clement. Lord Bcaupre’s comical and yet thoroughly
grounded view of his danger was soon a frequent
theme among the Gosselins, who, however, had their
own reasons for not communicating the alarm. They
had no motive for concealing their interest in their old
friend, but their allusions to him among their other
friends may be said on the whole to have been studied.
His state of mind recalled of course to Mary and her
mother the queer talk about his prospects that they
had had, in the country, that afternoon on which Mrs.
Gosselin had been so strangely prophetic (she con-
fessed that she had had a flash of divination : the
future had been mysteriously revealed to her), and
poor Guy too had seen himself quite as he was to
be. He had seen his nervousness, under inevitable
pressure, deepen to a panic, and lie now, in intimate
hours, made no attempt to disguise that a panic had
become his portion. It was a fixed idea with him that
he should fall a victim to woven toils, be caught in a
trap constructed with superior science. The science
evolved in an enterprising age by this branch of industry,
the manufacture of the trap matrimonial, he had
terrible anecdotes to illustrate ; and what had he on
his lips but a scientific term when he declared, as he
perpetually did, that it was his fate to be hypnotised ?

Mary Gosselin reminded him, they each in turn
reminded him that his safeguard was to fall in love :
were he once to put himself under that protection
all the mothers and maids in Mayfair would not
prevail against him. He replied that this was just

*9

LORD BEAUPRE

the impossibility ; it took leisure and calmness and
opportunity and a free mind to fall in love, and
never was a man less open to such experiences. He
was literally fightfog his way. He reminded the girl
of his old fancy for pretending already to have dis-
posed of his hand if he could put that hand on a
young person who should like him well enough to be
willing to participate in the fraud. She would have
to place herself in rather a false position of course —
have to take a certain amount of trouble ; but there
would after all be a good deal of fun in it (there was
always fun in duping the world) between the pair
themselves, the two happy comedians.

“ Why should they both be happy ? ” Mary
Gosselin asked. “ 1 understand why you should ;
but, frankly, I don’t quite grasp the reason of her
pleasure.”

Lord Bcaupre, with his sunny human eyes, thought
a moment. “ Why, for the lark, as they say, and
that sort of thing. I should be awfully nice to her.”

11 She would require indeed to be in want of
recreation ! ”

“ Ah, but I should want a good sort — a quiet,
reasonable one, you know ! ” he somewhat eagerly
interposed.

“ You’re too delightful ! ” Mary Gosselin ex-
claimed, continuing to laugh. He thanked her for
this appreciation, and she returned to her p^int,: —
that she didn't really see the advantage his accom-
plice could hope to enjoy as her compensation for
extreme disturbance.

Guy Firmingcr stared. “ But what extreme dis-
turbance ? ”

“ Why, it would take a lot of time ; it might
become intolerable.”

“You mean I ought to pay her — to hire her for
the season ? ”

20

LORD BEAUPR£

Mary Gosselin considered him a moment.
“ Wouldn’t marriage come cheaper at once ? ” she
asked with a quieter smile.

"You are chaffing me!” he Sighed forgivingly.
" Of course she would have to be good-natured
enough to pity me.”

" Pity's akin to love. If she were good-natured
enough to want so to help you she’d be good-natured
enough to want to marry you. That would be her
idea of help.”

" Would it be yours ? ” Lord Beaupre asked
rather eagerly.

" You’re too absurd ! You must sail your own
boat ! ” the girl answered, turning away.

That evening at dinner she stated to her com-
panions that she had never seen a fatuity so dense,
so serene, so preposterous as his lordship’s.

" Fatuity, my dear ! what do you mean ? ” her
mother inquired.

" Oh, mamma, you know perfectly.” Mary Gosse-
lin spoke with a certain impatience.

" If you mean he's conceited I’m bound to
say I don't agree with you,” her brother observed.
" He’s too indifferent to every one’s opinion for
that.”

" He's not vain, he's not proud, he’s not pompous,”
said Mrs. Gosselin.

. Mary was silent a moment. " He takes more
things for granted than any one I ever saw.”

" What sort of things ? ”

" Well, one's interest in his affairs.”

" With old friends surely a gentleman may.”

" Of course,” said Hugh Gosselin, " old friends
have in turn the right to take for granted a corre-
sponding interest on his part.”

" Well, who could be nicer to us than he is or
come to see us oftener ? ” his mother asked.

21

LORD BEAUPRE

" He comes exactly for the purpose I speak of —
to talk about himself,’ * said Mary.

“ There are thousands of girls who would be
delighted with his^alk,” Mrs. Gosselin returned.

“ We agreed long ago that he’s intensely selfish,”
the girl went on ; “ and if I speak of it to-day it’s
not because that in itself is anything of a novelty.
What I’m freshly struck with is simply that he more
shamelessly shows it.”

“ He shows it, exactly,” said Hugh ; ” he shows
all there is. There it is, on the surface ; there are
not depths of it underneath.”

“ He’s not hard,” Mrs. Gosselin contended ; ” he’s
not impervious.”

“ Do you mean he’s soft ? ” Mary asked.

“ I mean he’s yielding.” And Mrs. Gosselin, with
considerable expression, looked across at her daughter.
She added, before they rose from dinner, that poor
Beaupre had plenty of difficulties and that she thought,
for her part, they ought in common loyalty to do
what they could to assist him.

For a week nothing more passed between the two
ladies on the subject of their noble friend, and in
the course of this week they had the amusement of
receiving in Chester Street a member of Hugh’s
American circle, Mr. Bolton - Brown, a young man
from New York. He was a person engaged in large
affairs, for whom Hugh Gosselin professed the highest
regard, from whom in New York he had received
much hospitality, and for whose advent he had from
the first prepared his companions. Mrs. Gosselin
begged the amiable stranger to stay with them, and
if she failed to overcome his hesitation it was because
his hotel was near at hand and he should be able to
see them often. It became evident that he would
do so, and, to the two ladies, as the days went
by, equally evident that no objection to such a
22

LORD BEAUPRE

relation was likely to arise. Mr. Bolton-Brown was
delightfully fresh ; the most usual expressions
acquired on his lips a well-nigh comical novelty, the
most superficial sentiments, in tlfe look with which
he accompanied them, a really touching sincerity.
He was unmarried and good-looking, clever and
natural, and if he was not very rich was at least very
free-handed. He literally strewed the path of the
ladies in Chester Street with flowers, he choked them
with French confectionery. Hugh, however, who
was often rather mysterious on monetary questions,
placed in a light sufficiently clear the fact that his
friend had in Wall Street (they knew all about Wall
Street) improved each shining hour. They intro-
duced him to Lord Beaupre, who thought him
“ tremendous fun,” as Hugh said, and who imme-
diately declared that the four must spend a Sunday
at Bosco a week or two later. The date of this visit
was fixed — Mrs. Gosselin had uttered a comprehensive
acceptance ; but after Guy Firminger had taken
leave of them (this had been his first appearance
since the odd conversation with Mary), our young
lady confided to her mother that she should not be
able to join the little party. She expressed the con-
viction that it would be all that was essential if Mrs.
Gosselin should go with the two others. On being
pressed to communicate the reason of this aloofness
Mary was able to give no better one than that she
never had cared for Bosco.

“ What makes you hate him so ? " her mother
presently broke out in a tone which brought the red
to the girl's cheek. Mary denied that she entertained
for Lord Beaupre any sentiment so intense ; to
which Mrs. Gosselin rejoined with some sternness and,
no doubt, considerable wisdom : “ Look out what
you do then, or you'll be thought by every one to be
in love with him 1 ”

23

Ill

I know not whether it was tins danger — that of
appearing to be moved to extremes — that weighed
with Mary Gosselin ; at any r?.te when the day
arrived she had decided to be perfectly colourless
and take her share of Lord Beaupre’s hospitality.
On perceiving that the house, when with her com-
panions she reached it, was full of visitors, she
consoled herself with the sense that such a share
would be of the smallest. She even wondered
whether its smallness might not be caused in some
degree by the sufficiently startling presence, in this
stronghold of the single life, of Maud Ashbury and
her mother. It was true that during the Saturday
evening .she never saw their host address an observa-
tion to them ; but she was struck, as she had been
struck before, with the girl's cold and magnificent
beauty. It was very well to say she had " gone off ” ;
she was still handsomer than any one else. Slv> had
failed in everything she had tried ; the campaign
undertaken with so much energy against young
Raddle had been conspicuously disastrous. Young
Raddle had married his grandmother, or a person
who might have filled such an office, and Maud was
a year older, a year more disappointed and a year
more ridiculous. Nevertheless one could scarcely
believe that a creature with such advantages would
always fail, though indeed the poor girl was stupid
24

LORD BEAUPRE

enough to be a warning. Perhaps it would be at
Bosco, or with the master of Bosco, that fate had
appointed her to succeed. Except Mary herself
she was the only young unmarried woman on the
scene, and Mary glowed with the generous sense of
not being a competitor. She felt as much out of
the question as the blooming wives, the heavy
matrons, who formed the rest of the female contin-
gent. Before the evening closed, however, her host,
who, she saw, was delightful in his own house,
mentioned to her that he had a couple of guests who
had not been invited.

“ Not invited ? ”

" They drove up to my door as they might have
done to an inn. They asked for rooms and com-
plained of those that were given them. Don’t
pretend not to know who they are.”

“ Do you mean the Ashburys ? How amusing ! ”

" Don't laugh ; it freezes my blood.”

“ Do you really mean you’re afraid of them ? ”

” I tremble like a leaf. Some monstrous ineluct-
able fate seems to look at me out of their eyes.”

" That's because you secretly admire Maud.
How can you help it ? She’s extremely good-look-
ing, and if you get rid of her mother she’ll become a
very nice girl.”

“ It’s an odious thing, no doubt, to say about a
young person under one’s own roof, but I don’t
think I ever saw any one who happened to be less to
my taste,” said Guy Firminger. “ I don’t know
why I don’t turn them out even now.”

Mary persisted in sarcasm. “ Perhaps you can
make her have a worse time by letting her stay.”

” Please don't laugh,” her interlocutor repeated.
“ Such a fact as I have mentioned to you seems
to me to speak volumes — to show you what my
life is.”

25

LORD BEAUPRE*

" Oh, your life, your life ! ” Mary Gosselin mur-
mured, with her mocking note.

“ Don’t you agree that at such a rate it may
easily become irrfpossible ? ”

“ Many people would change with you. I don’t
see what there is for you to do but to bear your
cross ! ”

“ That’s easy talk ! ” Lord Bcaupre sighed.

“ Especially from me, do you mean ? How do
you know I don’t bear mine ? "

“ Yours ? ” he asked vaguely.

“ How do you know that I’m not persecuted,
that my footsteps are not dogged, that my life isn’t
a burden ? ”

They were walking in the old gardens, the pro-
prietor of which, at this, stopped short. “ Do you
mean by fellows who want to marry you ? ”

His tone produced on his companion’s part an
irrepressible peal of hilarity ; but she walked on as
she exclaimed : “You speak as if there couldn't be
such madmen ! ’’

“ Of course such a charming girl must be made
up to,’’ Guy Firminger conceded as he overtook her.

“ I don’t speak of it ; I keep quiet about it."

“You realise then, at any rate, that it’s all horrid
when you don’t care for them.’’

“ I suffer in silence, because I know there are
worse tribulations. It seems to me you ought to
remember that,” Mary continued. “ Your cross is
small compared with your crown. You’ve every-
thing in the world that most people most desire,
and I’m bound to say I think your life is made very
comfortable for you. If you're oppressed by the
quantity of interest and affection you inspire you
ought simply to make up your mind to bear up and
be cheerful under it."

Lord Beaupre received this admonition with
26

LORD BEAUPR£

perfect good humour ; he professed himself able to
do it full justice. He remarked that he would
gladly give up some of his material advantages to
be a little less badgered, and that He had been quite
content with his former insignificance. No doubt,
however, such annoyances were the essential draw-
backs of ponderous promotions ; one had to pay
for everything. Mary was quite right to rebuke him ;
her own attitude, as a young woman much admired,
was a lesson to his irritability. She cut this apprecia-
tion short, speaking of something else ; but a few
minutes later he broke out irrelevantly : “ Why, if
you are hunted as well as I, that dodge I proposed
to you would be just the tiling for us both ! ” He
had evidently been reasoning it out.

Mary Gosselin was silent at first ; she only paused
gradually in their walk at a point where four long
alleys met. In the centre of the circle, on a massive
pedestal, rose in Italian bronze a florid, complicated
image, so that the place made a charming old-world
picture. The grounds of Bosco were stately without
stiffness and full of marble terraces and misty avenues.
The fountains in particular were royal. The girl
had told her mother in London that she disliked this
fine residence, but she now looked round her with a
vague pleased sigh, holding up her glass (she had
been condemned to wear one, with a long handle,
since she was fifteen) to consider the weather-stained
garden group. “ What a perfect place of its kind ! ”
she musingly exclaimed.

" Wouldn't it really be just the thing ? " Lord
Beaupre went on, with the eagerness of his idea.

“ Wouldn’t what be just the thing ? ”

“ Why, the defensive alliance we’ve already talked
of. You wanted to know the good it would do you.
Now you see the good it would do you ! ”

" I don’t like practical jokes,” said Mary. “ The
27

LORD BEAUPRi

remedy's worse than the disease," she added ; and
she began to follow one of the paths that took the
direction of the house.

Poor Lord Bfeaupre was absurdly in love with
his invention ; he had all an inventor's importunity.
He kept up his attempt to place his “ dodge " in a
favourable light, in spite of a further objection from
his companion, who assured him that it was one of
those contrivances which break down in practice in
just the proportion in which they make a figure in
theory. At last she said : "I was not sincere just
now when I told you I’m worried. I’m not worried ! ”

“ They don't buzz about you ? " Guy Firminger
asked.

She hesitated an instant. “ They buzz about
me ; but at bottom it’s flattering and I don’t mind it.
Now please drop the subject."

He dropped the subject, though not without con-
gratulating her on the fact that, unlike his infirm
self, she could keep her head and her temper. His
infirmity found a trap laid for it before they had
proceeded twenty yards, as was proved by his sudden
exclamation of horror. “ Good Heavens — if there
isn’t Lottie ! "

Mary perceived, in effect, in the distance a female
figure coming towards them over a stretch of lawn,
and she simultaneously saw, as a gentleman passed
from behind a clump of shrubbery, that it was not
unattended. She recognised Charlotte Firminger,
and she also distinguished the gentleman. She
was moved to larger mirth at the dismay expressed
by poor Firminger, but she was able to articulate :
“ Walking with Mr. Brown."

Lord Beaupre stopped again before they were
joined by the pair. " Does he buzz about you ? "

“ Mercy, what questions you ask ! ” his companion
exclaimed.

28

LORD BEAUPRE

“ Does he — please ? ” the young man repeated
with odd intensity.

Mary looked at him an instant ; she was puzzled
by the deep annoyance that had* flushed through
the essential good-humour of his face. Then she
saw that this annoyance had exclusive reference to
poor Charlotte ; so that it left her free to reply,
with another laugh : “ Well, yes — he does. But

you know I like it ! ”

“ I don't, then ! ” Before she could have asked
him, even had she wished to, in what manner such
a circumstance concerned him, he added with his
droll agitation : “I never invited her, either ! Don’t
let her get at me ! ”

“ What can I do ? " Mary demanded as the others
advanced.

“ Please take her away ; keep her yourself ! I’ll
take the American, I’ll keep him,” he murmured,
inconsequently, as a bribe.

“ But I don’t object to him.”

” Do you like him so much ? ”

“ Very much indeed,” the girl replied.

The reply was perhaps lost upon her interlocutor,
whose eye now fixed itself gloomily on the dauntless
Charlotte. As Miss Firminger came nearer he ex-
claimed almost loud enough for her to hear : " I think
I shall murder her some day ! ”

Mary Gossclin’s first impression had been that, in
his panic, under the empire of that fixed idea to which
he confessed himself subject, he attributed to his
kinswoman machinations and aggressions of which
she was incapable ; an impression that might have
been confirmed by this young lady’s decorous placidity,
her passionless eyes, her expressionless cheeks and
colourless tones. She was ugly, yet she was orthodox ;
she was not what writers of books called intense.
But after Mary, to oblige their host, had tried, success-
29

LORD BEAUPRE

fully enough, to be crafty, had drawn. >er on to stroll
a little in advance of the two gentlemen, she became
promptly aware, by the mystical influence of pro-
pinquity, that Miss Firminger was indeed full of
views, of a purpose single, simple and strong, which
gave her the effect of a person carrying with a stiff,
steady hand, with eyes fixed and lips compressed, a
cup charged to the brim. She had driven over to
lunch, driven from somewhere in the neighbourhood ;
she had picked up some weak woman as an escort.
Mary, though she knew the neighbourhood, failed to
recognise her base of operations, and, as Charlotte
was not specific, ended by suspecting that, far from
being entertained by friends, she had put up at an
inn and hired a fly. This suspicion startled her ; it
gave her for the first time something of the measure
of the passions engaged, and she wondered to what
the insecurity complained of by Guy might lead.
Charlotte, on arriving, had gone through a part of
the house in quest of its master (the servants being
unable to tell her where he was), and she had finally
come upon Mr. Bolton-Brown, who was looking at
old books in the library. He had placed himself at
her service, as if he had been trained immediately to
recognise in such a case his duty, and informing her
that he believed Lord Beaupre to be in the grounds,
had come out with her to help to find him. Lottie
Firminger questioned her companion abort this
accommodating person ; she intimated that he was
rather odd but rather nice. Mary mentioned to her
that Lord Beaupre thought highly of him ; she
believed they were going somewhere together. At
this Miss Firminger turned round to look for them,
but they had already disappeared, and the girl became
ominously dumb.

Mary wondered afterwards what profit she could
hope to derive from such proceedings ; they struck her
30

LORD BEAUPRE

own sense, naturally, as disreputable and desperate.
Slie was equally unable to discover the compensation
they offered, in another variety, to poor Maud Ash-
bury, whom Lord Beaupre, the griater part of the
day, neglected as conscientiously as he neglected his
cousin. She asked herself if he should be blamed,
and replied that the others should be blamed first.
He got rid of Charlotte somehow after tea ; she had
to fall back to her mysterious lines. Mary knew this
method would have been detestable to him* — he hated
to force his friendly nature ; she was sorry for him
and wished to lose sight of him. She wished not to
be mixed up even indirectly with his tribulations, and
the fevered faces of the Ashburys were particularly
dreadful to her. She spent as much of the long
summer afternoon as possible out of the house, which
indeed on such an occasion emptied itself of most of
its inmates. Mary Gosselin asked her brother to join
her in a devious ramble ; she might have had other
society, but she was in a mood to prefer his. These
two were “ great chums,” and they had been separated
so long that they had arrears of talk to make up.
They had been at Bosco more than once, and though
Hugh Gosselin said that the land of the free (which
he had assured his sister was even more enslaved than
dear old England) made one forget there were such
spots on earth, they both remembered, a couple of
miles away, a little ancient church to which the walk
across the fields would be the right thing. They
talked of other things as they went, and among them
they talked of Mr. Bolton-Brown, in regard to whom
Hugh, as scantily addicted to enthusiasm as to bursts
of song (he was determined not to be taken in), became,
in commendation, almost lyrical. Mary asked what
he had done with his paragon, and he replied that
he believed him to have gone out stealthily to sketch :
they might come across him. He was extraordinarily
31

LORD BEAUPR^

clever at water-colours, but haunted with the fear
that the public practice of such* an art on Sunday
was viewed with disfavour in England. Mary
exclaimed that *this was the respectable fact, and
when her brother ridiculed the idea she told him she
had already noticed he had lost all sense of things at
home, so that Mr. Bolton-Brown was apparently a
better Englishman than he. “He is indeed — he’s
awfully artificial ! ” Hugh returned ; but it must be
added that in spite of this rigour their American
friend, when they reached the goal of their walk, was
to be perceived in an irregular attitude in the very
churchyard. He was perched on an old flat tomb,
with a box of colours beside him and a sketch half
completed. Hugh asserted that this exercise was the
only thing that Mr. Bolton-Brown really cared for,
but the young man protested against the imputation
in the face of an achievement so modest. He showed
his sketch to Mary, however, and it consoled her for
not having kept up her own experiments ; she never
could make her trees so leafy. He had found a lovely
bit on the other side of the hill, a bit he should like
to come back to, and he offered to show it to his
friends. They were on the point of starting with
him to look at it when Hugh Gosselin, taking out
his watch, remembered the hour at which he had
promised to be at the house again to give his mother,
who wanted .a little mild exercise, his arm. Hi lister,
at this, said she would go back with him ; but Bolton-
Brown interposed an earnest inquiry. Mightn’t she
let Hugh keep his appointment and let him take her
over the hill and bring her home ?

“ Happy thought — do that ! ” said Hugh, with a
crudity that showed the girl how completely he had
lost his English sense. He perceived, however, in
an instant that she was embarrassed, whereupon he
went on : “ My dear child, I’ve walked with girls so
32

LORD BEAUPRE

often in America that we really ought to let poor
Brown walk with one in England." I know not if
it was the effect of this plea or that of some further
eloquence of their friend ; at any rite Mary Gossclin
in the course of another minute had accepted the
accident of Hugh’s secession, had seen him depart
with an injunction to her to render it clear to poor
Brown that he had made quite a monstrous request.
As she went over the hill with her companion she
reflected that since she had granted the request it was
not in her interest to pretend she had gone out of her
way. She wondered, moreover, whether her brother
had wished to throw them together : it suddenly
occurred to her that the whole incident might have
been prearranged. The idea made her a little angry
with Hugh ; it led her, however, to entertain no resent-
ment against the other party (if party Mr. Brown had
been) to the transaction. He told her all the delight
that certain sweet old corners of rural England excited
in his mind, and she liked him for hovering near some
of her own secrets.

Hugh Gosselin meanwhile, at Bosco, strolling on
the terrace with his mother, who preferred walks
that were as slow as conspiracies and had had much
to say to him about his extraordinary indiscretion,
repeated over and over (it ended by irritating her),
that as he himself had been out for hours with
American girls it was only fair to let their friend
have a turn with an English one.

“ Pay as much as you like, but don’t pay with
your sister ! ” Mrs. Gosselin replied ; while Hugh
submitted that it was just his sister who was required
to make the payment his. She turned his logic to
easy scorn and she waited on the terrace till she had
seen the two explorers reappear. When the ladies
went to dress for dinner she expressed to her daughter
her extreme disapproval of such conduct, and Mary

33 D

LORD BEAUPRE

did nothing more to justify herself than to exclaim
at first “ Poor dear man ! ” and then to say “ I was
afraid you wouldn’t like it.” There were reservations
in her silence tt/kt made Mrs. Gosselin uneasy, and
she was glad that at dinner Mr. Bolton-Brown had
to take in Mrs Ashbury : it served him so right.
This arrangement had in Mrs. Gosselin’s eyes the
added iherit of serving Mrs. Ashbury right. She was
more uneasy than ever when after dinner, in the
drawing-room, she saw Mary sit for a period on the
same small sofa with the culpable American. This
young couple leaned back together familiarly, and
their conversation had the air of being desultory
without being in the least difficult. At last she
quitted her place and went over to them, remarking
to Mr. Bolton-Brown that she wanted him to come
and talk a bit to her. She conducted him to another
part of the room, which was vast and animated by
scattered groups, and held him there very persuasively,
quite maternally, till the approach of the hour at which
the ladies would exchange looks and murmur good-
nights. She made him talk about America, though
he wanted to talk about England, and she judged
that she gave him an impression of the kindest
attention, though she was really thinking, in alter-
nation, of three important things. One of these was
a circumstance of which she had become conscious
only just after sitting down with him — the piolonged
absence of Lord Beaupre from the drawing-room ;
the second was the absence, equally marked (to her
imagination) of Maud Ashbury ; the third was a
matter different altogether. " England gives one
such a sense of immemorial continuity, something
that drops like a plummet-line into the past,” said the
young American, ingeniously exerting himself while
Mrs. Gosselin, rigidly contemporaneous, strayed into
deserts of conjecture. Had the fact that their host

34

LORD BEAUPRE

was out of the room any connexion with the fact that
the most beautiful, even though the most suicidal, of
his satellites had quitted it ? Yet if poor Guy was
taking a turn by starlight on the tdtrace with the mis-
guided girl, what had he done with his resentment at
her invasion and by what inspiration of despair had
Maud achieved such a triumph ? The good lady
studied Mrs. Ashbury’s face across the room ; she
decided that triumph, accompanied perhaps with a
shade of nervousness, looked out of her insincere eyes.
An intelligent consciousness of ridicule was at any rate
less present in them than ever. While Mrs. Gosselin
had her infallible finger on the pulse of the occasion
one of the doors opened to readmit Lord Beaupre, who
struck her as pale and who immediately approached
Mrs. Ashbury with a remark evidently intended for
herself alone. It led this lady to rise with a move-
ment of dismay and, after a question or two, leave
the room. Lord Beaupre left it again in her company.
Mr. Bolton-Brown had also noticed the incident ; his
conversation languished and he asked Mrs. Gosselin if
she supposed anything had happened. She turned it
over a moment and then she said : “ Yes, something
will have happened to Miss Ashbury.”

“ What do you suppose ? Is she ill ? ”

“ I don’t know ; we shall see. They’re capable of
anything.”

” Capable of anything ? ”

“ I’ve guessed it, — she wants to have a grievance.”

“ A grievance ? ” Mr. Bolton-Brown was mystified.

“ Of course you don’t understand ; how should
you ? Moreover, it doesn’t signify. But I’m so vexed
with them (he’s a very old friend of ours) that really,
though I daresay I’m indiscreet, I can’t speak civilly
of them.”

“ Miss Ashbury’s a wonderful type,” said the
young American.

35

LORD BEAUPRE

This remark appeared to irritate his companion.
“I see perfectly what has happened ; she has made
a scene.”

“ A scene ? ” Mr. Bolton-Brown was terribly out
of it.

“ She has tried to be injured — to provoke him, I
mean, to some act of impatience, to some failure of
temper, of courtesy. She has asked him if he wishes
her to leave the house at midnight, and he may have

answered But no, he wouldn’t ! ” Mrs. Gosselin

suppressed the wild supposition.

“ How you read it ! She looks so quiet.”

“ Her mother has coached her, and (I won’t pre-
tend to say exactly what has happened) they’ve done,
somehow, what they wanted ; they’ve got him to do
something to them that he’ll have to make up for.”

“ What an evolution of ingenuity ! ” the young
man laughed.

" It often answers.”

“ Will it in this case ? ”

Mrs. Gosselin was silent a moment. ” It may.”

“ Really, you think ? ”

“ I mean it might if it weren't for something else.”

“I'm too judicious to ask what that is.”

“ I’ll tell you when we’re back in town,” said Mrs.
Gosselin, getting up.

Lord Beaupre was restored to them, and the iudies
prepared to withdraw. Before she went to bed Mrs.
Gosselin asked him if there had been anything the
matter with Maud ; to which he replied with abysmal
blankness (she had never seen him wear just that face)
that he was afraid Miss Ashbury was ill. She proved
in fact in the morning too unwell to return to London :
a piece of news communicated to Mrs. Gosselin at
breakfast.

“ She’ll have to stay ; I can’t turn her out of the
house,” said Guy Firminger.

36

LORD BEAUPRE

" Very well ; let her stay her fill ! "

” I wish you would stay too,” the young man
went on.

“ Do you mean to nurse her ? ”

“ No, her mother must do that. I mean to keep
me company.”

“ You ? You’re not going up ? ”

“ I think I had better wait over to-day, or long
enough to see what’s the matter.”

” Don't you know what’s the matter ? ”

He was silent a moment. “I may have been
nasty last night.”

” You have compunctions ? You’re too good-
natured.”

“ I daresay I hit rather wild. It will look better
for me to stop over twenty-four hours.”

Mrs. Gossclin fixed her eyes on a distant object.
“ Let no one ever say you’re selfish ! ”

“ Does any one ever say it ? ”

" You’re too generous, you’re too soft, you’re too
foolish. But if it will give you any pleasure Mary
and I will wait till to-morrow.”

“ And Hugh, too, won't he, and Bolton-Brown ? ”
“ Hugh will do as he pleases. But don’t keep the
American.”

“ Why not ? He’s all right.”

” That’s why I want him to go,” said Mrs. Gosse-
lin, who could treat a matter with candour, just as
she could treat it with humour, at the right moment.

The party at Bosco broke up and there was a
general retreat to town. Hugh Gosselin pleaded
pressing business, he accompanied the young American
to London. His mother and sister came back on the
morrow, and Bolton-Brown went in to see them, as
he often did, at tea-time. He found Mrs. Gosselin
alone in the drawing-room, and she took such a con-
venient occasion to mention to him, what she had

37

LORD BEAUPR^

withheld on the eve of their departure from Bosco,
the reason why poor Maud Ashbury’s frantic assault
on the master of that property would be vain. He
was greatly surprised, the more so that Hugh hadn’t
told him. Mrs. Gosselin replied that Hugh didn’t
know : she had not seen him all day and it had only
just come out. Hugh’s friend at any rate was deeply
interested, and his interest took for several minutes
the form of throbbing silence. At last Mrs. Gosselin
heard a sound below, on which she said quickly :
“ That’s Hugh — I’ll tell him now ! ” She left the
room with the request that their visitor would wait
for Mary, who would be down in a moment. During
the instants that he spent alone the visitor lurched,
as if he had been on a deck in a blow, to the window,
and stood there with his hands in his pockets, staring
vacantly into Chester Street ; then, turning away, he
gave himself, with an odd ejaculation, an impatient
shake which had the effect of enabling him to meet
Mary Gosselin composedly enough when she came in.
It took her mother apparently some time to com-
municate the news to Hugh, so that Bolton-Brown
had a considerable margin for nervousness and hesita-
tion before he could say to the girl, abruptly, but with
an attempt at a voice properly gay : “ You must let
me very heartily congratulate you ! ”

Mary stared. “ On what ? "

“ On your engagement.”

“ My engagement ? ”

“To Lord Beaupre.”

Mary Gosselin looked strange ; she coloured.
“ Who told you I’m engaged ? ”

" Your mother — just now.”

“ Oh ! ” the girl exclaimed, turning away. She
went and rang the bell for fresh tea, rang it with
noticeable force. But she said “ Thank you very
much ! ” before the servant came.

38

IV

Bolton-Brown did something that evening toward
disseminating the news : he told it to the first people
he met socially after leaving Chester Street ; and this
although he had to do himself a cerLain violence in
speaking. He would have preferred to hold his peace ;
therefore if he resisted his inclination it was for an
urgent purpose. This purpose was to prove to him-
self that he didn't mind. A perfect indifference could
be for him the only result of any understanding Mary
Gosselin might arrive at with any one, and he wanted
to be more and more conscious of his indifference. He
was aware indeed that it required demonstration, and
this was why he was almost feverishly active. He
could mentally concede at least that he had been
surprised, for he had suspected nothing at Bosco.
When a fellow was attentive in America every - one
knew it, and judged by this standard Lord Beaupre
made no show : how otherwise should he have
achieved that sweet accompanied ramble ? Every-
thing at any rate was lucid now, except perhaps a
certain ambiguity in Hugh Gosselin, who on coming
into the drawing-room with his mother had looked
flushed and grave and had stayed only long enough to
kiss Mary and go out again. There had been nothing
effusive in the scene ; but then there was nothing
effusive in any English scene. This helped to explain
why Miss Gosselin had been so blank during the
39

LORD BEAUPRE

minutes she spent with him before her mother came
back.

He himself wanted to cultivate tranquillity, and
he felt that he di& so the next day in not going again
to Chester Street. He went instead to the British
Museum, where he sat quite like an elderly gentleman,
with his hands crossed on the top of his stick and his
eyes fixed on an Assyrian bull. When he came away,
however, it was with the resolution to move briskly ;
so that he walked westward the whole length of
Oxford Street and arrived at the Marble Arch. He
stared for some minutes at this monument, as in the
national collection he had stared at even less intelligible
ones ; then brushing away the apprehension that he
should meet two persons riding together, he passed
into the park. He didn’t care a straw whom he met.
He got upon the grass and made his way to the
southern expanse, and when he reached the Row he
dropped into a chair, rather tired, to watch the caper-
ing procession of riders. He watched it with a lustre-
less eye, for what he seemed mainly to extract from it
was a viviftcation of his disappointment. He had
had a hope that he should not be forced to leave
London without inducing Mary Gosselin to ride with
him ; but that prospect failed, for what he had
accomplished in the British Museum was the deter-
mination to go to Paris. He tried to think of the
attractions supposed to be evoked by that lia*” , and
while he was so engaged he recognised that a gentle-
man on horseback, close to the barrier of the Row,
was making a sign to him. The gentleman was Lord
Beaupre, who had pulled up his horse and whose sign
the young American lost no time in obeying. He
went forward to speak to his late host, but during
the instant of the transit he was able both to observe
that Mary Gosselin was not in sight and to ask himself
why she was not. She rode with her brother ; why

40

LORD BEAUPRE

then didn’t she ride with her future husband ? It was
singular at such a moment to see her future husband
disporting himself alone. This personage conversed
a few moments with Bolton-Browft, said it was too
hot to ride, but that he ought to be mounted (he would
give him a mount if he liked) and was on the point of
turning away when his interlocutor succumbed to the
temptation to put his modesty to the test.

“ Good-bye, but let me congratulate you first,”
said Bolton-Brown.

“ Congratulate me ? On what ? ” His look, his
tone were very much what Mary Gosselin’s had been.

“ Why, on your engagement. Haven’t you heard
of it ? ”

Lord Beaupre stared a moment while his horse
shifted uneasily. Then he laughed and said : “ Which
of them do you mean ? ”

“ There’s only one I know anything about. To
Miss Gosselin,” Brown added, after a puzzled pause.

“ Oh yes, I see— thanks so much ! ” With this,
letting his horse go, Lord Beaupre broke off, while
Bolton-Brown stood looking after him and saying to
himself that perhaps he didn’t know ! The chapter
of English oddities was long.

But on the morrow the announcement was in
“ The Morning Post,” and that surely made it au-
thentic. It was doubtless only superficially singular
that Guy Firminger should have found himself unable
to achieve a call in Chester Street until this journal
had been for several hours in circulation. He
appeared there just before luncheon, and the first
person who received him was Mrs. Gosselin. He had
always liked her, finding her infallible on the question
of behaviour ; but he was on this occasion more than
ever struck with her ripe astuteness, her independent
wisdom.

“ I knew what you wanted, I knew what you

LORD BEAUPR&

needed, I knew the subject on which you had pressed
her,” the good lady said ; “ and after Sunday I found
myself really haunted with your dangers. There was
danger in the aif at Bosco, in your own defended
house ; it seemed to me too monstrous. I said to
myself ‘ We can help him, poor dear, and we must.
It's the least one can do for so old and so good a
friend.’ I decided what to do : I simply put this
other story about. In London that always answers.
I knew that Mary pitied you really as much as I do,
and that what she saw at Bosco had been a revelation
— had at any rate brought your situation home to her.
Yet of course she would be shy about saying out for
herself : ' Here I am — I’ll do what you want.’ The
thing was for me to say it for her ; so I said it first
to that chattering American. He repeated it to
several others, and there you arc ! I just forced her
hand a little, but it's all right. All she has to do
is not to contradict it. It won’t be any trouble and
you’ll be comfortable. That will be our reward ! ”
smiled Mrs. Gosselin.

“ Yes, all she has to do is not to contradict it,”
Lord Beaupre replied, musing a moment. " It
won’t be any trouble,” he added, ” and I hope I
shall be comfortable.” He thanked Mrs. Gosselin
formally and liberally, and expressed all his im-
patience to assure Mary herself of his deep obligation
to her ; upon which his hostess promised 1o send
her daughter to him on the instant : she would go
and call her, so that they might be alone. Before
Mrs. Gosselin left him, however, she touched on one
or two points that had their little importance. Guy
Firminger had asked for Hugh, but Hugh had gone
to the City, and his mother mentioned candidly that
he didn’t take part in the game. She even disclosed
his reason : he thought there was a want of dignity
in it. Lord Beaupre stared at this and after a

42

LORD BEAUPRE

moment exclaimed : “ Dignity ? Dignity be hanged !
One must save one’s life ! ”

“ Yes, but the point poor Hugh makes is that one
must save it by the use of one's oftn wits, or one’s
own arms and legs. But do you know what I said
to him ? " Mrs. Gosselin continued.

*' Something very clever, I daresay.”

" That if we were drowning you’d be the very
first to jump in. And we may fall overboard yet ! ”
Fidgeting there with his hands in his pockets Lord
Beauprc gave a laugh at this, but assured her that
there was nothing in the world for which they
mightn’t count upon him. None the less she just
permitted herself another warning, a warning, it is
true, that was in his own interest, a reminder of a
peril that he ought beforehand to look in the face.
Wasn’t there always the chance — just the bare
chance — that a girl in Mary’s position would, in the
event, decline to let him off, decline to release him
even on the day he should wish to marry ? She
wasn’t speaking of Mary, but there were of course
girls who would play him that trick. Guy Firminger
considered this contingency ; then he declared that
it wasn’t a question of ” girls,” it was simply a
question of dear old Mary ! If she should wish to
hold him, so much the better : he would do anything
in the world that she wanted. “ Don’t let us dwell
on such vulgarities ; but I had it on my conscience ! ”
Mrs. Gosselin wound up.

She left him, but at the end of three minutes
Mary came in, and the first thing she said was : " Be-
fore you speak a word, please understand this, that
it’s wholly mamma’s doing. I hadn't dreamed of it,
but she suddenly began to tell people.”

“ It was charming of her, and it’s charming of
you ! ” the visitor cried.

“ It's not charming of any one, I think,” said

43

LORD BEAUPRE

Mary Gosselin, looking at the carpet. “ It’s simply
idiotic.”

“ Don’t be nasty about it. It will be tremendous
fun.”

“ I’ve only consented because mamma says we
owe it to you,” the girl went on.

“ Never mind your reason — the end justifies the
means. I can never thank you enough nor tell you
what a weight it lifts off my shoulders. Do you
know I feel the difference already ? — a peace that
passeth understanding ! ” Mary replied that this
was childish ; how could such a feeble fiction last ?
At the very best it could live but an hour, and then
he would be no better off than before. It would
bristle, moreover, with difficulties and absurdities ; it
would be so much more trouble than it was worth.
She reminded him that so ridiculous a service had
never been asked of any girl, and at this he seemed a
little struck ; he said : “Ah, well, if it’s positively
disagreeable to you we’ll instantly drop the idea.

But I — I thought you really liked me enough ! ”

She turned away impatiently, and he went on to argue
imperturbably that she had always treated him in
the kindest way in the world. He added that the
worst was over, the start, they were off : the thing
would be in all the evening papers. Wasn’t it much
simpler to accept it ? That was all they would have
to do ; and all she would have to do would be not to
gainsay it and to smile and thank people when she
was congratulated. She would have to act a little,
but that would just be part of the fun. Oh, he
hadn’t the shadow of a scruple about taking the world
in ; the world deserved it richly, and she couldn’t
deny that this was what she had felt for him, that she
had really been moved to compassion. He grew
eloquent and charged her with having recognised
in his predicament a genuine motive for charity.
44

LORD BEAUPRE

Their little plot would last what it could — it would
be a part of their amusement to malic it last. Even
if it should be but a thing of a day there would
have been always so much gained. •But they would
be ingenious, they would find ways, they would
have no end of sport.

“ You must be ingenious ; I can’t,” said Mary.
" If people scarcely ever see us together they’ll guess
we’re trying to humbug them.”

" But they will sec us together. We are together.
We’ve been together — I mean we’ve seen a lot of
each other- — all our lives.”

"Ah, not that way ! ”

" Oh, trust me to work it right ! ” cried the
young man, whose imagination had now evidently
begun to glow in the air of their pious fraud.

" You’ll find it a dreadful bore,” said Mary
Gosselin.

“ Then I’ll drop it, don't you see ? And you’ll
drop it, of course, the moment you’ve had enough,”
Lord Beaupre punctually added. " But as soon as
you begin to realise what a lot of good you do me
you won’t want to drop it. That is if you’re what
I take you for ! ” laughed his lordship.

If a third person had been present at this con-
versation — and there was nothing in it surely that
might not have been spoken before a trusty listener
— that person would perhaps have thought, from the
immediate expression of Mary Gosselin's face, that
she was on the point of exclaiming “You take me
for too big a fool ! ” No such ungracious words in
fact, however, passed her lips ; she only said after an
instant : " What reason do you propose to give, on
the day you need one, for our rupture ? ”

Her interlocutor stared. " To you, do you mean ? ”

" I shan’t ask you for one. I mean to other
people.”

45

LORD BEAUPRE

“ Oh, I'll tell them you’re sick of me. I’ll put
everything on you, and you’ll put everything on me.”

“You have worked it out ! ” Mary exclaimed.

“ Oh, I shall be intensely considerate.”

“ Do you call that being considerate — publicly
accusing me? ”

Guy Firminger stared again. “ Why, isn’t that
the reason you’ll give ? ”

She looked at him an instant. “ I won’t tell you
the reason I shall give.”

“ Oh, I shall learn it from others.”

“ I hope you'll like it when you do ! ” said Mary,
with sudden gaiety ; and she added frankly though
kindly the hope that he might soon light upon some
young person who would really meet his requirements.
He replied that he shouldn’t be in a hurry — that was
now just the comfort ; and she, as if thinking
over to the end the list of arguments against his
clumsy contrivance, broke out : ‘ ‘ And of course you
mustn’t dream of giving me anything — any tokens
or presents.”

“ Then it won’t look natural.”

“ That’s exactly what I say. You can’t make it
deceive anybody.”

“ I must give you something — something that
people can see. There must be some evidence !
You can simply put my offerings away after a little
and give them back.” But about this Mary was
visibly serious ; she declared that she wouldn’t
touch anything that came from his hand, and she
spoke in such a tone that he coloured a little and
hastened to say : “Oh, all right, I shall be thoroughly
careful ! ” This appeared to complete their under-
standing ; so that after it was settled that for the
deluded world they were engaged, there was obviously
nothing for him to do but to go. He therefore shook
hands with her very gratefully and departed.

46

V

Hk was able promptly to assure his accomplice that
their little plot was working to a charm ; it already
made such a difference for the better. Only a week
had elapsed, but he felt quite 4 another man ; his life
was no longer spent in springing to arms and he had
ceased to sleep in his boots. The ghost of his great
fear was laid, he could follow out his inclinations and
attend to his neglected affairs. The news had been
a bomb in the enemy’s camp, and there were plenty
of blank faces to testify to the confusion it had
wrought. Every one was " sold ” and every one
made haste to clap him on the back. Lottie Firmin-
ger only had written in terms of which no notice
could be taken, though of course he expected, every
time he came in, to find her waiting in his hall. Her
mother was coming up to town and he should have
the family at his ears ; but, taking them as a single
body, he could manage them, and that was a detail.
The Ashburys had remained at Bosco till that
establishment was favoured with the tidings that so
nearly concerned it (they were communicated to
Maud’s mother by the housekeeper), and then the
beautiful sufferer had found in her defeat strength
to seek another asylum. The two ladies had departed
for a destination unknown ; he didn't think they had
turned up in London. Guy Firminger averred that
there were precious portable objects which he was

47

LORD BEAUPRE

sure lie should miss on returning to liis country
home.

He came every day to Chester Street, and was
evidently much ltss bored than Mary had prefigured
by this regular tribute to verisimilitude. It was
amusement enough to see the progress of their
comedy and to invent new touches for some of its
scenes. The girl herself was amused ; it was an
opportunity like another for cleverness such as hers
and had much in common with private theatricals,
especially with the rehearsals, the most amusing
part. Moreover, she was good-natured enough to be
really pleased at the service it was impossible for her
not to acknowledge that she had rendered. Each of
the parties to this queer contract had anecdotes and
suggestions for the other, and each reminded the
other duly that they must at every step keep their
story straight. Except for the exercise of this care
Mary Gosselin found her duties less onerous than she
had feared and her part in general much more passive
than active. It consisted indeed largely of murmur-
ing thanks and smiling and looking happy and
handsome ; as well as perhaps also in saying in answer
to many questions that nothing as yet was fixed and
of trying to remain humble when people expressed
without ceremony that such a match was a wonder
for such a girl. Her mother on the other hand was
devotedly active. She treated the situation with
private humour but with public zeal and, making it
both real and ideal, told so many fibs about it that
there were none left for Mary. The girl had failed to
understand Mrs. Gosselin’s interest in this elaborate
pleasantry ; the good lady had seen in it from the
first more than she herself had been able to see.
Mary performed her task mechanically, sceptically,
but Mrs. Gosselin attacked hers with conviction and
had really the air at moments of thinking that their

48

LORD BEAUPRE

fable had crystallised into fact. Mary allowed her as
little of this attitude as possible and was ironical
about her duplicity ; warnings which the elder lady
received with gaiety until one daj^ when repetition
had made them act on her nerves. Then she begged
her daughter, with sudden asperity, not to talk to her
as if she were a fool. She had already had words
with Hugh about some aspects of the affair — so
much as this was evident in Chester Street ; a
smothered discussion which at the moment had
determined the poor boy to go to Paris with Bolton-
Brown. The young men came back together after
Mary had been “ engaged ” three weeks, but she
remained in ignorance of what passed between Hugh
and his mother the night of his return. She had
gone to the opera with Lady Whitcroy, after one of
her invariable comments on Mrs. Gosselin’s invariable
remark that of course Guy Firminger would spend
his evening in their box. The remedy for his trouble,
Lord Beaupre's prospective bride had said, was surely
worse than the disease ; she was in perfect good faith
when she wondered that his lordship's sacrifices,
his laborious cultivation of appearances should “ pay.”

Hugh Gosselin dined with his mother and at
dinner talked of Paris and of what he had seen and
done there ; he kept the conversation superficial
and after he had heard how his sister, at the moment,
was occupied, asked no question that might have
seemed to denote an interest in the success of the
experiment for which in going abroad he had declined
responsibility. His mother could not help observing
that he never mentioned Guy Firminger by cither of
his names, and it struck her as a part of the same
detachment that later, upstairs (she sat with him
while he smoked), he should suddenly say as he
finished a cigar :

“ I return to New York next week.”

49 e

LORD BEAUPRE

“ Before your time ? What for ? ” Mrs. Gosselin
was horrified.

" Oh, mamma, you know what for ! ”

" Because ydu still resent poor Mary's good-
nature ? "

" I don’t understand it, and I don’t like things I
don't understand ; therefore I’d rather not be here
to see it. Besides I really can’t tell a pack of lies.”

Mrs. Gosselin exclaimed and protested ; she had
arguments to prove that there was no call at present
for the least deflexion from the truth ; all that any
one had to reply to any question (and there could
be none that was embarrassing save the ostensible
determination of the date of the marriage) was
that nothing was settled as yet — a form of words in
which for the life of her she couldn’t see any perjury.
" Why, then, go in for anything in such bad taste,
to culminate only in something so absurd ? ” Hugh
demanded. “ If the essential part of the matter
can’t be spoken of as fixed nothing is fixed, the
deception becomes transparent and they give the
whole idea away. It's child’s play.”

“ That’s why it's so innocent. All I can tell you
is that practically their attitude answers ; he's
delighted with its success. Those dreadful women
have given him up ; they’ve already found some
other victim.”

” And how is it all to end, please ? ”

Mrs. Gosselin was silent for a moment. “ j'erhaps
it Won’t end.”

“ Do you mean that the engagement will become
real ? ”

Again the good lady said nothing until she broke
out : ” My dear boy, can't you trust your poor old
mummy ? ”

“ Is that your speculation ? Is that Mary’s ? I
never heard of anything so odious ! ” Hugh Gosselin

50

LORD BEAUPRE

cried. But she defended his sister with eagerness,
with a gloss of coaxing, maternal indignation, declar-
ing that Mary’s disinterestedness was complete — she
had the perfect proof of it. Hugh «ivas conscious as
he lighted another cigar that the conversation was
more fundamental than any that he had ever had
with his mother, who, however, hung fire but for an
instant when lie asked her what this “ perfect proof ”
might be. He didn’t doubt of his sister, he admitted
that ; but the perfect proof would make the whole
thing more luminous. It took finally the form of a
confession from Mrs. Gossclin that the girl evidently
liked — well, greatly liked — Mr. Bolton-Brown. Yes,
the good lady had seen for herself at Bosco that the
smooth young American was making up to her and
that, time and opportunity aiding, something might
very well happen which could not be regarded as
satisfactory. She had been very frank with Mary,
had besought her not to commit herself to a suitor
who in the very nature of the case couldn't meet the
most legitimate of their views. Mary, who pretended
not to know what their " views" were, had denied
that she was in danger ; but Mrs. Gosselin had
assured her that she had all the air of it and had said
triumphantly : “ Agree to what Lord Beaupre asks
of you, and I’ll believe you.” Mary had wished to be
bclie\ed — so she had agreed. That was all the
witchcraft any one had used.

Mrs. Gosselin out-talked her son, but there were
two or three plain questions that he came back to ;
and the first of these bore upon the ground of her
aversion to poor Bolton- Brown. He told her again,
as he had told her before, that his friend was that
rare bird a maker of money who was also a man of
culture. He was a gentleman to his finger-tips,
accomplished, capable, kind, with a charming mother
and two lovely sisters (she should see them !) the
5i

LORD BEAUPRE

sort of fellow in short whom it was stupid not to
appreciate.

“ I believe it all, and if I had three daughters he
should be very welcome to one of them/’

“ You might easily have had three daughters who
wouldn't attract him at all ! You've had the good
fortune to have one Who does, and I think you do
wrong to interfere with it."

“ My eggs are in one basket then, and that’s a
reason the more for preferring Lord Beaupre," said
Mrs. Gosselin.

“ Then it is your calculation ? ” stammered

Hugh in dismay ; on which she coloured and re-
quested that he would be a little less rough with his
mother. She would rather part with him immedi-
ately, sad as that would be, than that he should
attempt to undo what she had done. When Hugh
replied that it was not to Mary but to Beaupre
himself that he judged it important he should speak,
she informed him that a rash remonstrance might
do his sister a cruel wrong. Dear Guy was most
attentive.

" If you mean that he really cares for her there’s
the less excuse for his taking such a liberty with
her. He’s either in love with her or he isn’t. If he
is, let him make her a serious offer ; if he isn’t, let
him leave her alone."

Mrs. Gosselin looked at her son with a kind of
patient joy. " He’s in love with her, but he doesn’t
know it."

" He ought to know it, and if he’s so idiotic I
don’t see that we ought to consider him.”

" Don’t worry — he shall know it ! ” Mrs. Gosselin
cried ; and, continuing to struggle with Hugh, she
insisted on the delicacy of the situation. She made
a certain impression on him, though on confused
grounds ; she spoke at one moment as if he was to

52

LORD BEAUPRIS

forbear because the matter was a make-believe that
happened to contain a convenience for a distressed
friend, and at another as if one ought to strain a
point because there were great possibilities at stake.
She was most lucid when she pictured the social
position and other advantages of a peer of the realm.
What had those of an American stockbroker, however
amiable and with whatever shrill belongings in the
background, to compare with them ? She was incon-
sistent, but she was diplomatic, and the result of the
discussion was that Hugh Gossclin became conscious
of a dread of " injuring ” his sister. He became
conscious at the same time of a still greater appre-
hension, that of seeing her arrive at the agreeable in
a tortuous, a second-rate manner. He might keep
the peace to please his mother, but he couldn't enjoy
it, and he actually took his departure, travelling in
company with Bolton-Brown, who of course before
going waited on the ladies in Chester Street to thank
them for the kindness they had shown him. It
couldn’t be kept from Guy Firminger that Hugh
was not happy, though when they met, which was
only once or twice before he quitted London, Mary
Gosselin’s brother flattered himself that he was too
proud to show it. He had always liked old loafing
Guy and it was disagreeable to him not to like him
now ; but he was aware that he must either quarrel
with him definitely or not at all and that he had
passed his word to his mother. Therefore his
attitude was strictly negative ; he took with the
parties to it no notice whatever of the “ engage-
ment,” and he couldn’t help it if to other people he
had the air of not being initiated. They doubtless
thought him strangely fastidious. Perhaps he was ;
the tone of London struck him in some respects as
very horrid ; he had grown in a manner away from
it. Mary was impenetrable ; tender, gay, charming,

53

LORD BEAUPRlt

but with no patience, as she said, for his premature
flight. Except when Lord Beaupr6 was present you
would not have dreamed that he existed for her. In
his company — had to be present more or less of
course — she was simply like any other English girl
who disliked effusiveness. They had each the same
manner, that of persons of rather a shy tradition who
were on their guard against public “ spooning."
They practised their fraud with good taste, a good
taste mystifying to Bolton-Brown, who thought their
precautions excessive. When he took leave of Mary
Gosselin her eyes consented for a moment to look
deep down into his. He had been from the first of
the opinion that they were beautiful, and he was
more mystified than ever.

If Guy Firminger had failed to ask Hugh Gosselin
whether he had a fault to find with what they were
doing, this was, in spite of old friendship, simply
because he was too happy now to care much whom
he didn’t please, to care at any rate for criticism.
He had ceased to be critical himself, and his high
prosperity could take his blamelessness for granted.
His happiness would have been offensive if people
generally hadn’t liked him, for it consisted of a kind
of monstrous candid comfort. To take all sorts of
things for granted was still his great, his delightful
characteristic ; but it didn’t prevent his showing
imagination and tact and taste in particular circum-
stances. He made, in their little comedy, all the
right jokes and none of the wrong ones : the girl had
an acute sense that there wen' some jokes that would
have been detestable. She gathered that it was
universally supposed she was having an unpre-
cedented season, and something of the glory of an
enviable future seemed indeed to hang about her.
People no doubt thought it odd that she didn’t go
about more with her future husband ; but those who
54

LORD BEAUPRE

knew anything about her knew that she had never
done exactly as other girls did. She had her own
ways, her own freedoms and her own scruples. Cer-
tainly he made the London weeks «nuch richer than
they had ever been for a subordinate young person ;
he put more things into them, so that they grew
dense and complicated. This frightened her at
moments, especially when she thought with com-
punction that she was deceiving her very friends.
She didn’t mind taking the vulgar world in, but there
were people she hated not to enlighten, to reassure.
She could undeceive no one now, and indeed she
would have been ashamed. There were hours when
she wanted to stop — she had such a dread of doing
too much ; hours when she thought with dismay
that the fiction of the rupture was still to come, with
its horrid train of new untrue things. She spoke of
it repeatedly to her confederate, who only postponed
and postponed, told her she would never dream of
forsaking him if she measured the good she was
doing him. She did measure it, however, when she
met him in the great world ; she was of course
always meeting him : that was the only way appear-
ances were kepi up. There was a certain attitude
she could allow him to take on these occasions ; it
covered and carried off their subterfuge. He could
talk to her unmolested ; for herself she never spoke
of anything but the charming girls, everywhere
present, among whom he could freely choose. He
didn’t protest, because to choose freely was what he
wanted, and they discussed these young ladies one
by one. Some she recommended, some she dis-
paraged, but it was almost the only subject she
tolerated. It was her system in short, and she won-
dered he didn’t get tired of it ; she was so tired of it
herself.

She tried other things that she thought he might

55

LORD BEAUPRIi

find wearisome, but his good-humour was magni-
ficent. He was now reahy for the first time enjoying
his promotion, his wealth, his insight into the terms
on which the world offered itself to the happy few,
and these terms made a mixture healing to irri-
tation. Once, at some glittering ball, he asked her
if she would be jealous if he were to dance again with
Lady Whiteroy, with whom he had danced already,
and this was the only occasion on which he had come
near making a joke of the wrong sort. She showed
him what she thought of it and made him feel that
the way to be forgiven was to spend the rest of the
evening with that lovely creature. Now that the
phalanx of the pressingly nubile was held in check
there was accordingly nothing to prevent his passing
his time pleasantly. Before he had taken this
effective way the diplomatic mother, when she spied
him flirting with a married woman, felt that in urging
a virgin daughter’s superior claims she worked for
righteousness as well as for the poor girl. But Mary
Gosselin protected these scandals practically by the
still greater scandal of her indifference ; so that he
was in the odd position of having waited to be con-
fined to know what it was to be at large. He had
in other words the maximum of security with the
minimum of privation. The lovely creatures of Lady
Whitcroy’s order thought Mary Gosselin charming,
but they were the first to see through her falsify.

All this carried our precious pair to the middle
of July ; but nearly a month before that, one night
under the summer stars, on the deck of the steamer
that was to reach New York on the morrow, some-
thing had passed between Hugh Gosselin and his
brooding American friend. The night was warm
and splendid ; these were their last hours at sea,
and Hugh, who had been playing whist in the cabin,
came up very late to take an observation before

56

LORD BEAUPRE

turning in. It was in this way that he chanced on
his companion, who was leaning over the stern of
the ship and gazing off, beyond its phosphorescent
track, at the muffled, moaning oce%n, the backward
darkness, everything he had relinquished. Hugh
stood by him for a moment and then asked him
what he was thinking about. Bolton-Brown gave
at first no answer ; after which he turned round
and, with his back against the guard of the deck,
looked up at the multiplied stars. " He has it
badly," Hugh Gosselin mentally commented. At
last his friend replied : “ About something you said
yesterday.”

" I forget what I said yesterday."

" You spoke of your sister's intended marriage ; it
was the only time you had spoken of it. You seemed
to intimate that it might not after all take place."

Hugh hesitated a little. " Well, it won’t take
place. They’re not engaged, not really. This is a
secret, a preposterous secret. I wouldn't tell any
one else, but I’m willing to tell you. It may make
a difference to you."

Bolton-Brown turned his head ; he looked at
Hugh a minute through the fresh darkness. “ It
does make a difference to me. But I don't under-
stand," he added.

" Neither do I. I don’t like it. It’s a pretence,
a temporary make-believe, to help Beaupre through."

" Through what ? ”

" He’s so run after."

The young American stared, ejaculated, mused.
"Oh, yes — your mother told me."

"It's a sort of invention of my mother's and a
notion of his own (very absurd, I think) till he can
see his way. Mary serves as a kind of escort for
these first exposed months. It’s ridiculous, but I
don’t know that it hurts her."

57

LORD BEAUPR^

“ Oh ! ” said Bolton-Brown.

“ I don’t know either that it does her any good.”

“ No ! ” said Bolton-Brown. Then he added :
“ It’s certainly v^ry kind of her.”

“ It’s a case of old friends,” Hugh explained,
inadequately as he felt. " He has always been in
and out of our house.”

“ But how will it end ? ”

“ I haven't the least idea.”

Bolton-Brown was silent ; he faced about to the
stern again and stared at the rush of the ship. Then
shifting his position once more : “Won’t the engage-
ment, before they’ve done, develop into the regular
thing.? ”

Hugh felt as if his mother were listening. “ I
daresay not. If there were even a remote 4 chance of
that, Mary wouldn’t have consented.”

“ But mayn't he easily find that — charming as she
is — he’s in love with her ? ”

“ He’s too much taken up with himself.”

“ That’s just the reason,” said Bolton-Brown.
“ Love is selfish.” He considered a moment longer,
then he went on : “ And mayn’t she find ? ”

“ Find what ? ” said Hugh, as he hesitated.

“ Why, that she likes him.”

" She likes him of course, else she wouldn’t have
come to his assistance. But her certainty about
herself must have been just what made lie j not
object to lending herself to the arrangement She
could do it decently because she doesn’t seriously

care for him. If she did ! ” Hugh suddenly

stopped.

“ If she did ? ” his friend repeated.

“ It would have been odious.”

“ I see,” said Bolton-Brown gently. “ But how
will they break off ? ”

“ It will be Mary who’ll break off.”

58

lord beauprH:

“ Perhaps she’ll find it difficult.”

“ She’ll require a pretext.”

" I see,” mused Bolton-Brown, shifting his position
again.

“ She’ll find one,” Hugh declared.

" I hope so,” his companion responded.

For some minutes neither of them spoke ; then
Hugh asked : " Are you in love with her ? ”

"Oh, my dear fellow ! ” Bolton-Brown wailed.
He instantly added : " Will it be any use for me to
go back ? ”

Again Hugh felt as if his mother were listening.
But he answered : " Do go back.”

" It’s awfully strange,” said Bolton-Brown. " I’ll
go back.”

"You had better wait a couple of months, you
know.”

" Mayn’t I lose her then ? ”

" No — they'll drop it all.”

“ I’ll go back ! ” the American repeated, as if he
hadn’t heard. He was restless, agitated ; he had
evidently been much affected. He fidgeted away
dimly, moved up the level length of the deck. Hugh
Gosselin lingered longer at the stern ; he fell into
the attitude in which he had found the other, leaning
over it and looking back at the great vague distance
they had come. He thought of his mother.

59

VI

To remind her fond parent of the vanity of certain
expectations which she more than suspected her of
entertaining, Mary Gosselin, while she felt herself
intensely watched (it had all brought about a horrid
new situation at home) produced every day some
fresh illustration of the fact that people were no
longer imposed upon. Moreover, these illustrations
were not invented ; the girl believed in them, and
when once she had begun to note them she saw them
multiply fast. Lady Whiteroy, for one, was dis-
linctly suspicious ; she had taken the liberty more
than once of asking the future Lady Beaupre what
in the world was the matter with her. Brilliant
figure as she was and occupied with her own pleasures,
which were of a very independent nature, she had
nevertheless constituted herself Miss Gosselin's social
sponsor : she took a particular interest in her
marriage, an interest all the greater as it rested not
only on a freely -professed regard for her, but a
keen sympathy with the other party to the trans-
action. Lady Whiteroy, who was very pretty and
very clever and whom Mary secretly but profoundly
mistrusted, delighted in them both in short ; so
much so that Mary judged herself happy to be in a
false position, so certain should she have been to be
jealous had she been in a tme one. This charming
woman threw out inquiries that made the girl not

60

LORD BEAUPRJL

care to meet her eyes ; and Mary ended by forming
a theory of the sort of marriage for Lord Beaupre
that Lady Whiteroy really would have appreciated.
It would have been a marrkSge to a fool, a
marriage to Maud Ashbury or to Charlotte Fir-
minger. She would have her reasons for preferring
that ; and, as regarded the actual prospect, she had
only discovered that Mary was even more astute than
herself.

It will be understood how much our young lady
was on the crest of the wave when I mention that
in spite of this complicated consciousness she was
one of the ornaments (Guy Firminger was of course
another) of the party entertained by her zealous
friend and Lord Whiteroy during the Goodwood
week. She came back to town with the firm inten-
tion of putting an end to a comedy which had more
than ever become odious to her ; in consequence of
which she had on this subject with her fellow-
comedian a scene — the scene she had dreaded —
half-pathetic, half-ridiculous. He appealed to her,
wrestled with her, took his usual ground that she
was saving his life without really lifting a finger. He
denied that the public was not satisfied with their
pretexts for postponement, their explanations of
delay ; what else was expected of a man who would
wish to celebrate his nuptials on a suitable scale, but
who had the misfortune to have had, one after
another, three grievous bereavements ? He promised
not to molest her for the next three months, to go
away till his " mourning " was over, to go abroad,
to let her do as she liked. He wouldn’t come near
her, he wouldn’t even write (no one would know it),
if she would let him keep up the mere form of their
fiction ; and he would let her off the very first instant
he definitely perceived that this expedient had ceased
to be effective. She couldn’t judge of that — she

6i

LORD BEAUPRE

must let him judge ; and it was a matter in which
she could surely trust to his honour.

Mary Gosselin trusted to it, but she insisted on
his going away. <When he took such a tone as that
she couldn't help being moved ; he breathed with
such frank, generous lips on the irritation she had
stored up against him. Guy Firminger went to
Homburg, and if his confederate consented not to
clip the slender thread by which this particular
engagement still hung, she made very short work
with every other. A dozen invitations, for Cowes,
for the country, for Scotland, shimmered there before
her, made a pathway of flowers, but she sent barbar-
ous excuses. When her mother, aghast, said to her
“ What then will you do ? " she replied in a very
conclusive manner "I’ll go home ! " Mrs. Gosselin
was wise enough not to struggle ; she saw that the
thread was delicate, that it must dangle in quiet
air. She therefore travelled back with her daughter
to homely Hampshire, feeling that they were people
of less importance than they had been for many a
week. On the August afternoons they sat again on
the little lawn on which Guy Firminger had found
them the day he first became eloquent about the
perils of the desirable young bachelor ; and it was
on this very spot that, toward the end of the month,
and with some surprise, they beheld Mr. Bolton-
Brown once more approach. He had come back
from America ; he had arrived but a few days fore ;
he was staying, of all places in the world, at the inn
in the village.

His explanation of this caprice was of all explana-
tions the oddest ; he had come three thousand miles
for the love of water-colour. There was nothing
more skctchable than the sketchability of Hampshire
— wasn't it celebrated, classic ? and he was so good
as to include Mrs. Gosselin’ s charming premises, and
62

LORD BEAUPRE

even their charming occupants, in his view of the
field. He fell to work with speed, with a sort of
feverish eagerness ; he seemed possessed indeed by
the frenzy of the brush. He sketched everything on
the place, and when he had represented an object
once he went straight at it again. His advent was
soothing to Mary Gossclin, in spite of his nervous
activity ; it must be admitted indeed that at the
moment he arrived she had already felt herself in
quiet waters. The August afternoons, the relinquish-
ment of London, the simplified life, had rendered her
a service which, if she had freely qualified it, she
would have described as a restoration of her self-
respect. If poor Guy found any profit in such con-
ditions as these there was no great reason to repudiate
him. She had so completely shaken off responsibility
that she took scarcely more than a languid interest
in the fact, communicated to her by Lady Whiteroy,
that Charlotte Firminger had also, as the newspapers
said, “ proceeded ” to Homburg. Lady Whiteroy
knew, for Lady Whiteroy had “ proceeded ” as well ;
her physician had discovered in her constitution a
pressing need for the comfort imbibed in dripping
matutinal tumblers. She chronicled Charlotte’s
presence, and even to some extent her behaviour,
among the haunters of the spring, but it was not till
some time afterwards that Mary learned how Miss Fir-
mingcr’s pilgrimage had been made under her lady-
ship’s protection. This was a further sign that, like
Mrs. Gosselin, Lady Whiteroy had ceased to struggle ;
she had, in town, only shrugged her shoulders
ambiguously on being informed that Lord Beaupre’s
intended was going down to her stupid home.

The fullness of Mrs. Gosselin' s renunciation was
apparent during the stay of the young American in
the neighbourhood of that retreat. She occupied
herself with her knitting, her garden and the cares

63

LORD BEAUPRE

oi a punctilious hospitality, but she had no appear-
ance of any other occupation. When people came
to tea Bolton-Brown was always there, and she had
the self-control td attempt to say nothing that could
assuage their natural surprise. Mrs. Ashbury came
one day with poor Maud, and the two elder ladies,
as they had done more than once before, looked for
some moments into each other’s eyes. This time it
was not a look of defiance, it was rather — or it would
have been for an observer completely in the secret —
a look of reciprocity, of fraternity, a look of arrange-
ment. There was, however, no one completely in the
secret save perhaps Mary, and Mary didn’t heed.
The arrangement at any rate was ineffectual ; Mrs.
Gosselin might mutely say, over the young American’s
eager, talkative shoulders, “ Yes, you may have him
if you can get him ” : the most rudimentary experi-
ments demonstrated that he was not to be got.
Nothing passed on this subject between Mary and
her mother, whom the girl none the less knew to
be holding her breath and continuing to watch. She
counted it more and more as one unpleasant result
of her conspiracy with Guy Firmingcr that it almost
poisoned a relation that had always been sweet. It
was to show that she was independent of it that she
did as she liked now, which was almost always as
Bolton-Brown liked. When in the first days of
September — it was in the warm, clear twilight, and
they happened, amid the scent of fresh hay, to be
leaning side by side on a stile — he gave her a view of
the fundamental and esoteric, as distinguished from
the convenient and superficial motive of his having
come back to England, she of course made no allusion
to a prior tie. On the other hand she insisted on his
going up to London by the first train the next day.
He was to wait — that was distinctly understood —
for his satisfaction.

64

LORD BEAUPRE

She desired meanwhile to write immediately to
Guy Firmingcr, but as he had kept his promise of
not complicating their contract with letters she was
uncertain as to his actual whereabouts :• she was
only sure he would have left Homburg. Lady
Whiteroy had become silent, so there were no more
sidelights, and she was on the point of telegraphing
to London for an address when she received a tele-
gram from Bosco. The proprietor of that seat had
arrived there the day before, and he found he could
make trains fit if she would on the morrow allow
him to come over and see her for a day or two. He
had returned sooner than their agreement allowed,
but she answered “ Come ” and she showed his
missive to her mother, who at the sight of it wept
with strange passion. Mary said to her “ For heaven’s
sake, don't let him see you ! ” She lost no time ;
she told him on the morrow as soon as he entered the
house that she couldn’t keep it up another hour.

“ All right — it is no use,” he conceded ; “ they’re
at it again ! "

"You see you've gained nothing ! ” she replied
triumphantly. She had instantly recognised that he
was different, how much had happened.

" I've gained some of the happiest days of my
life.”

" Oh, that was not what you tried for ! ”

" Indeed it was, and I got exactly what I wanted,"
said Guy Firmingcr. They were in the cool little
drawing-room where the morning light was dim.
Guy Firminger had a sunburnt appearance, as in
England people returning from other countries are
apt to have, and Mary thought he had never looked
so well. It was odd, but it was noticeable, that he
had grown much handsomer since he had become a
personage. He paused a moment, smiling at her
while her mysterious eyes rested on him, and then

65 F

LORD BEAUPRE

he added : “ Nothing ever worked better. It’s no
use now— people see. But I've got a start. I
wanted to turn round and look about, and I have
turned round an*d looked about. There arc things
I’ve escaped. I’m afraid you’ll never understand
how deeply I'm indebted to you.”

" Oh, it’s all right ! ” said Mary Gosselin.

There was another short silence, after which he
went on : " I’ve come back sooner than I promised,
but only to be strictly fair. I began to see that we
couldn’t hold out and that it was my duty to let you
off. From that moment I was bound to put an end
to your situation. I might have done so by letter,
but that seemed scarcely decent. It’s all I came
back for, you know, and it's why I wired to you
yesterday.”

Mary hesitated an instant, she reflected intensely.
What had happened, what would happen, was that
if she didn’t take care the signal for the end of their
little arrangement would not have appeared to come
from herself. She particularly wished it not to come
from any one else, she had even a horror of that ; so
that after an instant she hastened to say : “I was on
the very point of wiring to you — I was only waiting
for your address.”

“ Wiring to me ? ” He seemed rather blank.

"To tell you that our absurd affair really, this
time, can’t go on another day — to put a complete
stop to it.”

" Oh ! ” said Guy Firminger.

“ So it’s all right.”

" You’ve always hated it ! ” Guy laughed ; and
his laugh sounded slightly foolish to the girl.

" I found yesterday that I hated it more than
ever.”

Lord Beaupre showed a quickened attention.
“ For what reason — yesterday ? ”

66

LORD BEAUPRE

“ I would rather not tell you, please. Perhaps
some time you’ll find it out."

He continued to look at her brightly and fixedly
with his confused cheerfulness. Tlien he said with
a vague, courteous alacrity : "I see, I see ! ” She
had an impression that he didn’t see ; but it didn’t
matter, she was nervous and quite preferred that he
shouldn't. They both got up, and in a moment he
exclaimed : " Well, I’m intensely sorry it’s over !

It has been so charming."

“ You’ve been very good about it ; I mean very
reasonable,” Mary said, to say something. Then
she felt in her nervousness that this was just what
she ought not to have said : it sounded ironical and
provoking, whereas she had meant it as pure good-
nature. " Of course you'll stay to luncheon ? ’’ she
continued. She was bound in common hospitality
to speak of that, and he answered that it would give
him the greatest pleasure. After this her appre-
hension increased, and it was confirmed in particular
by the manner in which he suddenly asked :

" By the way, what reason shall we give ? ’’

" What reason ? ”

" For our rupture. Don’t let us seem to have
quarrelled."

“ We can’t help that,” said Mary. “ Nothing
else will account for our behaviour."

“ Well, I shan’t say anything about you.”

" Do you mean you’ll let people think it was your-
self who were tired of it ? ”

‘‘ I mean I shan’t blame you."

"You ought to behave as if you cared ! ” said Mary.

Guy Firmingcr laughed, but he looked worried
and he evidently was puzzled. “ You must act as
if you had jilted me.”

" You're not the sort of person unfortunately that
people jilt."

67

LORD BEAUPRE

Lord Beaupre appeared to accept this statement
as incontestable ; not with elation, however, but
with candid regret, the slightly embarrassed recog-
nition of a fun&amontal obstacle. “ Well, it’s no
one’s business, at any rate, is it ? ”

“No one’s, and that’s what I shall say if people
question me. Besides, ’’ Mary added, “ they’ll see
for themselves.”

“ What will they see ? ”

“ I mean they’ll understand. And now we had
better join mamma.”

It was his evident inclination to linger in the
room after she had said this that gave her complete
alarm. Mrs. Gossclin was in another room, in which
she sat in the morning, and Mary moved in that
direction, pausing only in the hall for him to accom-
pany her. She wished to get him into the presence
of a third person. In the hall he joined her, and in
doing so laid his hand gently on her arm. Then
looking into her eyes with all the pleasantness of
his honesty, he said : “It will be very easy for me
to appear to care — for I shall care. I shall care
immensely ! ” Lord Beaupre added smiling.

Anything, it struck her, was better than that —
than that he should say : “ We’ll keep on, if you
like (7 should !) only this time it will be serious.
Hold me to it — <io ; don't let me go ; lead me on to
the altar — really ! ” Some such words as these, she
believed, were rising to his lips, and she had an insur-
mountable horror of hearing them. It was as if,
well enough meant on his part, they would do her a
sort of dishonour, so that all her impulse was quickly
to avert them. That was not the way she wanted
to be asked in marriage. " Thank you very
much,” she said, “ but it doesn’t in the least
matter. You will seem to have been jilted — so it’s
all right ! ”

68

LORD BEAUPRE

“ All right ! You mean ? ” He hesitated, he

had coloured a little : his eyes questioned her.

" I’m engaged to be married — in garnest."

" Oh ! ” said Lord Beaupre.

"You asked me just now if I had a special reason
for having been on the point of telegraphing to you,
and I said I had. That was my special reason."

" I see ! " said Lord Beaupre. He looked grave
for a few seconds, then he gave an awkward smile.
But he behaved with perfect tact and discretion,
didn't even ask her who the gentleman in the case
might be. He congratulated her in the dark, as it
were, and if the effect of this was indeed a little odd
she liked him for his quick perception of the fine
fitness of pulling up short. Besides, he extracted
the name of the gentleman soon enough from her
mother, in whose company they now immediately
found themselves. Mary left Guy Firminger with
the good lady for half an hour before luncheon ; and
when the girl came back it was to observe that she
had been crying again. It was dreadful — what she
might have been saying. Their guest, however, at
luncheon was not lachrymose ; he was natural, but
he was talkative and gay. Mary liked the way he
now behaved, and more particularly the way he
departed immediately after the meal. As soon as
he was gone Mrs. Gosselin broke out suppliantly :
“ Mary ! " But her daughter replied :

" I know, mamma, perfectly what you're going
to say, and if you attempt to say it I shall leave the
room." With this threat (day after day, for the
following time) she kept the terrible appeal unuttered
until it was too late for an appeal to be of use. That
afternoon she wrote to Bolton-Brown that she
accepted his offer of marriage.

Guy Firminger departed altogether ; he went
abroad again and to far countries. He was there-
69

LORD BEAUPRE

fore not able to be present at the nuptials of Miss
Gosselin and the young American whom he had
entertained at Rosco, which took place in the middle
of November. Had he been in England, however, he
probably would have felt impelled by a due regard
for past verisimilitude to abstain from giving his
countenance to such an occasion. His absence from
the country contributed to the needed even if astonish-
ing effect of his having been jilted ; so, likewise,
did the reputed vastness of Bolton-Brown' s young
income, which in London was grossly exaggerated.
Hugh Gosselin had perhaps a little to do with this ;
as he had sacrificed a part of his summer holiday, he
got another month and came out to his sister’s
wedding. He took public comfort in his brother-
in-law ; nevertheless he listened with attention to
a curious communication made him by his mother
after the young couple had started for Italy ; even
to the point of bringing out the inquiry (in answer to
her assertion that poor Guy had been ready to place
everything he had at Mary’s feet) : “ Then why the
devil didn’t he do it ? ”

" From simple delicacy ! He didn’t want to make
her feel as if she had lent herself to an artifice only
on purpose to get hold of him — to treat her as if she
too had been at bottom one of the very harpies she
helped him to elude.”

Hugh thought a moment. ” That was delicate.”

“ He’s the dearest creature in the worlc He’s
on his guard, he’s prudent, he tested himself by
separation. Then he came back to England in love
with her. She might have had it all ! ”

” I’m glad she didn’t get it that way.”

” She had only to wait — to put an end to their
artifice, harmless as it was, for the present, but still
wait. She might have broken off in a way that
would have made it come on again better.”

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LORD BEAUPR&

“ That’s exactly what she didn’t want."

“ I mean as a quite separate incident," said Mrs.
Gosselin.

“ I loathed their artifice, harmless as it was ! "
her son observed.

Mrs. Gosselin for a moment made no answer ;
then she turned away from the fire into which she
had been pensively gazing with the ejaculation
" Poor dear Guy ! "

" I can’t for the life of me sec that he’s to be
pitied.”

“ He’ll marry Charlotte Firminger."

" If he’s such an ass as that it’s his own affair."

" Bessie Whiteroy will bring it about."

“ What has she to do with it ? "

“ She wants to get hold of him."

“ Then why will she marry him to another woman? "

" Because in that way she can select the other —
a woman he won’t care for. It will keep him from
taking some one that’s nicer.”

Hugh Gosselin stared — he laughed aloud. " Lord,
mamma, you’re deep ! "

" Indeed I am, I see much more."

“ What do you see ? "

“ Mary won’t in the least care for America. Don’t
tell me she will," Mrs. Gosselin added, " for you
know perfectly you don’t believe it."

" She’ll care for her husband, she’ll care for
everything that concerns him."

‘ ' He’s very nice, in his little way he’s delightful. But
as an alternative to Lord Beauprc he’s ridiculous ! "

" Mary’s in a position in which she has nothing
to do with alternatives."

“ For the present, yes, but not for ever. She’ll
have enough of your New York ; they'll come back
here. I see the future dark," Mrs. Gosselin pursued,
inexorably musing.

7i

LORD BEAUPR£

" Tell me then all you see."

“ She’ll find poor Guy wretchedly married, and
she’ll be very sorry for him.”

' “ Do you meah that he’ll make love to her ? You
give a queer account of your paragon."

“ He’ll value her sympathy. I see life as it is.”

“ You give a queer account of your daughter."

“ I don’t give any account. She’ll behave per-
fectly," Mrs. Gosselin somewhat inconsequently sub-
joined.

“ Then what are you afraid of ? "

“ She’ll be sorry for him, and it will be all a
worry."

“ A worry to whom ? "

The good lady was silent a moment. “ To me,”
she replied. " And to you as well."

“ Then they mustn’t come back."

“ That will be a greater worry still."

" Surely not a greater — a smaller. We’ll put up
with the lesser evil."

“ Nothing will prevent her coming to a sense,
eventually, of what might have been. And when
they both recognise it "

“ It will be very dreadful ! " Hugh exclaimed,
completing gaily his mother’s phrase. " I don’t see,
however," he added, “ what in all this you do with
Bessie Whiteroy."

" Oh, he’ll be tired of her ; she’s hard, she’ll have
become despotic. I see life as it is," the gool lady
repeated.

" Then all I can say is that it’s not very nice I
But they shan’t come back : /’ll attend to that ! "
said Hugh Gosselin, who has attended to it up to this
time successfully, though the Jest of his mother’s
prophecy is so far accomplished (it was her second
hit) as that Charlotte Firminger is now, strange as
it may seem, Lady Beaupre.

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7 3

The other day, after her death, when they were dis-
cussing her, some one said in reference to the great
number of years she had lived, the people she had
seen and the stories she knew : “ What a pity no one
ever took any notes of her talk ! ” For a Londoij
epitaph that was almost exhaustive, and the subject
presently changed. One of the listeners had taken
many notes, but he didn't confess it on the spot.
The following story is a specimen of my exactitude —
I took it down, verbatim, having that faculty, the day
after I heard it. I choose it, at hazard, among those
of her reminiscences that I have preserved ; it’s not
worse than the others. I will give you some of the
others too — when occasion offers — so that you may
judge.

I met in town that year a dear woman whom I
had scarcely seen since I was a girl ; she had dropped .
out of the world ; she came up but once in five years.
We had been together as very young creatures, and
then we had married and gone our ways. It was
arranged between us that after I should have paid a
certain visit in August in the west of England I would
take her — it would be very convenient, she was just
over the Cornish border — on the way to my other
engagements : I would work her in, as you say
nowadays. She wanted immensely to show me her
home, and she wanted still more to show me her girl,
who had not come up to London, choosing instead,

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THE VISITS

after much deliberation, to go abroad for a month
with her brother and her brother’s coach — he had
been cramming for something — and Mrs. Coach of
course. All that*Mrs. Chantry had been able to show
me in town was her husband, one of those country
gentlemen with a moderate property and an old place
who are a part of the essence in their own neighbour-
hood and not a part of anything anywhere else.

A couple of days before my visit to Chantry Court
the people to whom I had gone from town took me
over to see some friends of theirs who lived, ten miles
away, in a place that was supposed to be fine. As
it was a long drive we stayed to luncheon ; and then
as there were gardens and other things that were more
or less on show we struggled along to tea, so as to
get home just in time for dinner. There were a good
many other people present, and before luncheon a
very pretty girl came into the drawing-room, a real
maiden in her flower, less than twenty, fiesh and fair
and charming, with the expression of some one I knew.
I asked who she was, and was told she was Miss
Chantry, so that in a moment I spoke to her, men-
tioning that I was an old friend of her mother's and
that I was coming to pay them a visit. She looked
rather frightened and blank, was apparently unable
to say that she had ever heard of me, and hinted at
no pleasure in the idea that she was to hear of me
again. But this didn’t prevent my perceiving that
she was lovely, for I was wise enough even then not
to think it necessary to measure people by the im-
pression that one makes on them. I saw that any
I should make on Louisa Chantry would be much too
clumsy a test. She had been staying at the house at
which I was calling ; she had come alone, as the
people were old friends and to a certain extent
neighbours, and was going home in a few days. It
was a daughterless house, but there was inevitable

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THE VISITS

young life : a couple of girls from the vicarage, a
married son and his wife, a young man who had
“ ridden over ” and another young man who was
staying.

Louisa Chantry sat opposite to me at luncheon,
but too far for conversation, and before we got up
I had discovered that if her manner to me had been
odd it was not because she was inanimate. She was
on the contrary in a state of intense though carefully
muffled vibration. There was some fever in her blood,
but no one perceived it, no one, that is, with an
exception — an exception which was just a part of the
very circumstance. This single suspicion was lodged
in the breast of the young man whom 1 have alluded
to as staying in the house. He was on the same side
of the table as myself and diagonally facing the girl ;
therefore what I learned about him was for the moment
mainly what she told me ; meaning by “ she ” her
face, her eyes, her movements, her whole perverted
personality. She was extremely on her guard, and
I should never have guessed her secret but for an
accident. The accident was that the only time she
dropped her eyes upon him during the repast I
happened to notice it. It might not have been much
to notice, but it led to my seeing that there was a
little drama going on and that the young man would
naturally be the hero. It was equally natural that
in this capacity he should be the cause of my asking
my left-hand neighbour, who happened to be my host,
for some account of him. But “Oh, that fellow ?
he’s my nephew,” was a description which, to appear
copious, required that I should know more about the
uncle.

We had coffee on the terrace of the house ; a
terrace laid out in one quarter, oddly and charmingly,
in grass where the servants who waited upon us
seemed to tread, processionally, on soundless velvet,

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THE VISITS

There I had a good look at my host’s nephew and a
longer talk with my friend’s daughter, in regard to
whom I had become conscious of a faint, formless
anxiety. I remtmber saying to her, gropingly,
instinctively : “ My dear child, can I do anything
for you ? I shall perhaps see your mother before you
do. Can I for instance say anything to her from
you ? ” This only made her blush and turn away ;
and it was not till too many days had passed that I
guessed that what had looked out at me unwittingly
in her little gazing trepidation was something like
“ Oh, just take me away in spite of myself ! ” Super-
ficially, conspicuously, there was nothing in the young
man to take her away from. He was a person of the
middle condition, and save that he didn’t look at all
humble might have passed for a poor relation. I
mean that he had rather a seedy, shabby air, as if
he were wearing out old clothes (he had on faded
things that didn’t match) ; and I formed vaguely
the theory that he was a specimen of the numerous
youthful class that goes to seek its fortune in the
colonies, keeps strange company there and comes
home without a penny. He had a brown, smooth,
handsome face, a slightly swaggering, self-conscious
ease, and was probably objected to in the house.
He hung about, smoking cigarettes on the terrace,
and nobody seemed to have much to say to him —
a circumstance which, as he managed somehow
to convey, left him absolutely indifferent. Louisa
Chantry strolled away with one of the girls from the
vicarage ; the party on the terrace broke up and the
nephew disappeared.

It was settled that my friends and I should take
leave at half-past five, and I begged to be abandoned
in the interval to my devices. I turned into the
library and, mounted on ladders, I handled old books
and old prints and soiled my gloves. Most of the

78

THE VISITS

others had gone to look at the church, and I was left
in possession. I wandered into the rooms in which
I knew there were pictures ; and if the pictures were
not good there was some interestiifg china which I
followed from corner to corner and from cabinet to
cabinet. At last I found myself on the threshold of
a small room which appeared to terminate the series
and in which, between the curtains draping the door-
ways, there appeared to be rows of rare old plates on
velvet screens. I was on the point of going in when
I became aware that there was something else beside,
something which threw me back. Two persons were
standing side by side at the window, looking out
together with their backs to me — two persons as to
whom I immediately felt that they believed them-
selves to be alone and unwatched. One of them was
Louisa Chantry, the other was the young man whom
my host had described as his nephew. They were so
placed as not to see me, and when I recognised them
I checked myself instinctively. I hesitated a moment ;
then I turned away altogether. I can’t tell you why,
except that if I had gone in I should have had some-
how the air of discovering them. There was no
visible reason why they should have been embarrassed
by discovery, inasmuch as, so far as I could see, they
were doing no harm, were only standing more or less
together, without touching, and for the moment
apparently saying nothing. Were they watching
something out of the window ? I don't know ; all
I know is that the observation I had made at luncheon
gave me a sense of responsibility. I might have taken
my responsibility the other way and broken up their
communion ; but I didn’t feel this to be sufficiently
my business. Later on I wished I had.

I passed through the rooms again, and then out
of the house. The gardens were ingenious, but they
made me think (I have always that conceited habit)

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THE VISITS

how much cleverer I should have been about them.
Presently I met several of the rest of the party
coming back from the church ; on which my hostess
took possession 6f me, declaring there was a point
of view I must absolutely be treated to. I saw she
was a walking woman and that this meant half a
mile in the park. But I was good for that, and we
wandered off together while the others returned to
the house. It was present to me that I ought to ask
my companion, for Helen Chantry's sake, a question
about Louisa — whether for instance she had happened
to notice the way the girl seemed to be going. But
it was difficult to say anything without saying too
much ; so that to begin with I merely risked the
observation that our young friend was remarkably
pretty. As the point admitted of no discussion this
didn’t take us very far ; nor was the subject much
enlarged by our unanimity as to the fact that she
was also remarkably nice. I observed that I had
had very little chance to talk with her, for which I
was sorry, having known her mother for years. My
hostess, at this, looked vaguely round, as if she had
missed her for the first time. “ Sure enough, she has
not been about. I daresay she’s been writing to her
mother — she's always writing to her mother.” “ Not
always,” I mentally reflected ; but I waited discreetly,
admiring everything and rising to the occasion and
the views, before I inquired casually who the young
man might be who had sat two or three below me at
luncheon — the rather good-looking young man, with
the regular features and the brownish clothes — not
the one with the moustache.

” Oh, poor Jack Brandon,” said my companion,
in a tone calculated to make him seem no one in
particular.

“ Is he very poor ? ” I asked, with a laugh.

” Oh dear, yes. There are nine of them — fancy !

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THE VISITS

—all boys ; and there’s nothing for any one but the
eldest. He’s my husband's nephew — his poor mother’s
my sister-in-law. He sometimes turns up here when
he has nothing better to do ; but \ don't think he
likes us much.” I saw she meant that they didn’t
like him ; and I exposed myself to suspicion by asking
if he had been with them long. But my friend was
not very, plastic, and she simplified my whole theory
of the case by replying after she had thought a
moment that she wasn't clear about it — she thought
he had come only the morning before. It seemed to
me I could safely feel a little further, so I inquired if
he were likely to stay many days. “ Oh dear, no ;
he’ll go to-morrow ! ” said my hostess. There was
nothing whatever to show that she saw a connexion
between my odd interest in Mr. Brandon and the
subject of our former reference ; there was only a
quick lucidity on the subject of the young man’s
departure. It reassured me, for no great complica-
tions would have arisen in forty-eight hours.

In retracing our steps we passed again through a
part of the gardens. Just after we had entered them
my hostess, begging me to excuse her, called at a
man who was raking leaves to ask him a question
about his wife. I heard him reply " Oh, she’s very
bad, my lady,” and I followed my course. Presently
my lady turned round with him, as if to go to see his
wife, who apparently was ill and on the place. I
continued to look about me — there were such charm-
ing things ; and at the end of five minutes I missed
my way — I had not taken the direction of the house.
Suddenly at the turn of a walk, the angle of a great
clipped hedge, I found myself face to face with Jack
Brandon. He was moving rapidly, looking down,
with his hands in his pockets, and he started and
stared at me a moment. I said “ Oh, how d'ye do ? ”
and I was on the point of adding “ Won’t you kindly

81 G

THE VISITS

show me the right way ? " But with a summary
salute and a queer expression of face he had already
passed me. I looked after him an instant and I all
but stopped hinf ; then one of the faintest voices of
the air told me that Louisa Chantry would not be
far off, that in fact if I were to go on a few steps I
should find her. I continued and I passed through
an arched aperture of the hedge, a kind of door in
the partition. This corner of the place was like an
old French garden, a little enclosed apartment, with
statues set into the niches of the high walls of verdure.
I paused in admiration ; then just opposite to me I
saw poor Louisa. She was on a bench, with her hands
clasped in her lap, her head bent, her eyes staring
down before her. I advanced on the grass, attracting
her attention ; and I was close to her before she
looked at me, before she sprang up and showed me
a face convulsed with nameless pain. She was so
pale that I thought she was ill — I had a vision of
her companion’s having rushed off for help. She
stood gazing at me with expanded eyes and parted
lips, and what I was mainly conscious of was that
she had become ten years older. Whatever troubled
her it was something pitiful — something that prompted
me to hold out my two hands to her and exclaim
tenderly “ My poor child, my poor child ! " She
wavered a moment, as if she wanted to escape me
but couldn’t trust herself to run ; she looked away
from me, turning her head this way and that Then
as I went close to her she covered her face with her
two hands, she let me lay mine upon her and draw
her to my breast. As she dropped her head upon it
she burst into tears, sobbing soundlessly and tragically.
I asked her no question, I only held her so long as
she would, letting her pour out the passion which I
felt at the same time she made a tremendous effort to
smother. She couldn't smother it, but she could
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THE VISITS

break away violently ; and this she quickly did,
hurrying out of the nook where our little scene — and
some other greater scene, I judged, just before it —
had taken place, and leaving me infinitely mystified.
I sat down on the bench a moment and thought it
over ; then I succeeded in discovering a path to the
house.

The carriage was at the door for our drive home,
but my companions, who had had tea, were waiting
for our hostess, of whom they wished to take leave
and who had not yet come in. I reported her as
engaged with the wife of one of the gardeners, but
wc lingered a little in the hall, a largeish group, to
give her time to arrive. Two other persons were
absent, one of whom was Louisa Chantry and the
other the young man whom I had just seen quitting
her in the garden. While I sat there, a trifle ab-
stracted, still somewhat agitated by the sequel to
that incident and at the same time impatient of our
last vague dawdle, one of the footmen presented me
with a little folded note. I turned away to open it,
and at the very moment our hostess fortunately
came in. This diverted the attention of the others
from the action of the footman, whom, after I had
looked at the note, I immediately followed into the
drawing-room. He led me through it and through
two or three others to the door of the little retreat in
which, nearly an hour before, I had come upon Louisa
Chantry and Mr. Brandon. The note was from
Louisa, it contained the simple words " Would you
very kindly speak to me an instant before you go ? ”
She was waiting for me in the most sequestered spot
she had been able to select, and there the footman
left us. The girl came straight at me and in an instant
she had grasped my hands. I became aware that
her condition had changed ; her tears were gone,
she had a concentrated purpose. I could scarcely

83

THE VISITS

see her beautiful young face — it was pressed,
beseechingly, so close to mine. I only felt, as her
dry, shining eyes almost dazzled me, that a strong
light had been weaved back and forth before me. Her
words at first seemed to me incoherent ; then I
understood that she was asking me for a pledge.

“ Excuse me, forgive me for bringing you here —
to say something I can’t say before all those people.
Do forgive me — it was so awfully kind of you to
come. I couldn’t think of any other way — just for
two seconds. I want you to swear to me,” she went
on, with her hands now raised and intensely clasped.

“To swear, dearest child ? ”

“ I'm not your dearest child — I'm not any one’s !
But don't tell mamma. Promise me — promise me,”
she insisted.

“ Tell her what ? — I don’t understand.”

“ Oh, you do — you do ! ” she kept on ; “ and if
you’re going to Chantry you’ll see her, you’ll be with
her, you may see her before I do. On my knees I
ask you for a vow ! ”

She seemed on the point of throwing herself at
my feet, but I stopped her, I kept her erect. “ When
shall you see your mother ? ”

“ As soon as I can. I want to get home — I want
to get home ! ” With this I thought she was going
to cry again, but she controlled herself and only’
pressed me with feverish eyes.

“You have some great trouble — for heave e’, sake
tell me what it is.”

“ It isn’t anything — it will pass. Only don’t
breathe it to mamma ! ”

“ How can I breathe it if I don’t know what it is ? ”

“ You do know — you know what I mean.” Then
after an instant’s pause she added : " What I did in
the garden.”

“ What did you do in the garden ? ”

8 4

THE VISITS

“ I threw myself on your neck and I sobbed — I
behaved like a maniac."

“ Is that all you mean ? ”

“ It’s what I don't want mamnfe to know — it's
what I beseech you to keep silent about. If you
don’t I’ll never, never go home. Have mercy on
me ! ’’ the poor child quavered.

“ Dear girl, I only want to be tender to you — to
be perfect. But tell me first : has any one acted
wrongly to you ? ’’

“ No one — no one. I speak the truth.”

She looked into my eyes, and I looked far into
hers. They were wild with pain and yet they were
so pure that they made me confusedly believe her.
I hesitated a moment ; then I risked the question :
“ Isn't Mr. Brandon responsible for anything ? "

“ For nothing — for nothing ! Don’t blame him ! ”
the girl passionately cried.

“ He hasn’t made love to you ? ’’

“ Not a word — before God ! Oh, it was too
awful ! ” And with this she broke away from me,
flung herself on her knees before a sofa, burying her
face in it and in her arms. " Promise me, promise
me, promise me ! ’’ she continued to wail.

I was horribly puzzled but I was immeasurably
touched. I stood looking a moment at her extrava-
gant prostration ; then I said "I’m dreadfully in the
dark, but I promise."

This brought her to her feet again, and again
she seized my hands. “ Solemnly, sacredly ? " she
panted.

" Solemnly, sacredly.”

“ Not a syllable — not a hint ? ”

" Dear Louisa," I said kindly, “ when I promise I
perform."

“You see I don’t know you. And when do you
go to Chantry ? ”

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" Day after to-morrow. And when do you ? ”

“ To-morrow if I can.”

“ Then you'll see your mother first — it will be all
right,” I said snliling.

“ All right, all right ! ” she repeated, with her
woeful eyes. “ Go, go ! ” she added, hearing a step
in the adjoining room.

The footman had come back to announce that
my friends were seated in the carriage, and I was
careful to say before him in a different tone : “ Then
there’s nothing more I can do for you ? ”

“ Nothing — good-bye,” said Louisa, tearing herself
away too abruptly to take my kiss, which, to follow
the servant again, I left unbestowed. I felt awkward
and guilty as I took leave of the company, murmur-
ing something to my entertainers about having had
an arrangement to make with Miss Chantry. Most
of the people bade us good-bye from the steps, but
I didn’t see Jack Brandon. On our drive home in
the waning afternoon my other friends doubtless
found me silent and stupid.

I went to Chantry two days later, and was dis-
appointed to find that the daughter of the house
had not returned, though indeed after parting with
her I had been definitely of the opinion that she
was much more likely to go to bed and be ill. Her
mother, however, had not heard that she was ill, and
my inquiry about the young lady was of course
full of circumspection. It was a little difficu 1 *, for
I had to talk about her, Helen being particularly
delighted that we had already made acquaintance.
No day had been fixed for her return, but it came
over my friend that she oughtn't to be absent during
too much of my visit. She was the best thing they
had to show — she was the flower and the charm of
the place. It had other charms as well — it was a
sleepy, silvery old home, exquisitely grey and ex-
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THE VISITS

quisitely green ; a house where you could have con-
fidence in your leisure : it would be as genuine as the
butter and the claret. The very look of the pleasant,
prosaic drawing-room suggested lt>ng mornings of
fancy work, of Berlin wool and premeditated patterns,
new stitches and mild pauses. My good Helen was
always in the middle of something eternal, of which
the past and the future were rolled up in oilcloth and
tissue paper, and the intcnsest moments of conversa-
tion were when it was spread out for pensive opinions.
These used to drop sometimes even from Christopher
Chantry when he straddled vaguely in with muddy
leggings and the raw materials of a joke. He had a
mind like a large, full milk-pan, and his wit was as
thick as cream.

One evening I came down to dinner a little early
and, to my surprise, found my troubled maiden in
possession of the drawing-room. She was evidently
troubled still, and had been waiting there in the hope
of seeing me alone. We were too quickly interrupted
by her parents, however, and I had no conversation
with her till I sat down to the piano after dinner and
beckoned to her to come and stand by it. Her father
had gone off to smoke ; her mother dozed by one of
the crackling little fires of the summer’s end.

“ Why didn’t you come home the day you told
me you meant to ? ”

She fixed her eyes on my hands. “ I couldn't, I
couldn’t ! ”

“You look to me as if you were very ill.”

“ I am,” the girl said simply.

“You ought to see some one. Something ought
to be done.”

She shook her head with quiet despair. “ It
would be no use — no one would know.”

“ What do you mean — would know ? ”

“ No one would understand.”

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“You ought to make them ! ”

“ Never — never ! ” she repeated. “ Never ! ”

“ I confess I don't/' I rephed, with a kind of
angry renuncia&on. I played louder, with the
passion of my uneasiness and the aggravation of
my responsibility.

“ No, you don’t indeed,” said Louisa Chantry.

I had only to accept this disadvantage, and after
a moment I went on : “ What became of Mr.

Brandon ? ”

“ I don’t know.”

“ Did he go away ? ”

“ That same evening.”

“ Which same evening ? ”

“ The day you were there. I never saw him
again.”

I was silent a minute, then I risked : “ And
you never will, eh ? ”

“ Never — never.”

“ Then why shouldn’t you get better ? ”

She also hesitated, after which she answered :
“ Because I’m going to die.”

My music ceased, in spite of me, and we sat
looking at each other. Helen Chantry woke up with
a little start and asked what was the matter. I rose
from the piano and I couldn’t help saying “ Dear
Helen, I haven't the least idea.” Louisa sprang up,
pressing her hand to her left side, and the next
instant I cried aloud “ She’s faint — she’s ’ll— do
come to her ! ” Mrs. Chantry bustled over to us,
and immediately afterwards the girl had thrown
herself on her mother’s breast, as she had thrown
herself days before on mine ; only this time without
tears, without cries, in the strangest, most tragic
silence. She was not faint, she was only in despair —
that at least is the way I really saw her. There was
something in her contact that scared poor Helen,

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THE VISITS

that operated a sudden revelation : I can see at this
hour the queer frightened look she gave me over
Louisa’s shoulder. The girl, however, in a moment
disengaged herself, declaring that »she was not ill,
only tired, very tired, and wanted to go to bed. “ Take
her, take her — go with her,” I said to her mother;
and I pushed them, got them out of the room, partly
to conceal my own trepidation. A few moments
after they had gone Christopher Chantry came in,
having finished his cigar, and I had to mention to
him — to explain their absence — that his daughter
was so fatigued that she had withdrawn under her
mother’s superintendence. “ Didn’t she seem done up,
awfully done up ? What on earth, at that confounded
place, did she go in for ? ” the dear man asked with
his pointless kindness. I couldn’t tell him this was
just what I myself wanted to know ; and while I
pretended to read I wondered inextinguishably what
indeed she had " gone in ” for. It had become still
more difficult to keep my vow than I had expected ;
it was also very difficult that evening to converse
with Christopher Chantry. His wife's continued
absence rendered some conversation necessary ; yet
it had the advantage of making him remark, after it
had lasted an hour, that he must go to see what was
the matter. He left me, and soon afterwards I
betook myself to my room ; bed-time was elastic in
the early sense at Chantry. I knew I should only
have to wait awhile for Helen to come to me, and in
fact by eleven o'clock she arrived.

“ She’s in a very strange state — something hap-
pened there.”

“ And what happened, pray ? ”

“ I can't make out ; she won't tell me.”

“ Then what makes you suppose so ? ”

“ She has broken down utterly ; she says there
was something.”

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THE VISITS

" Then she does tell you ? ”

“ Not a bit. She only begins and then stops
short — she says it’s too dreadful."

“ Too dreadfdl ? ”

" She says it's horrible,” my poor friend murmured,
with t^ars in her eyes and tragic speculation in her
mild maternal face.

“ But in what way ? Does she give you no facts,
no clue ? ”

“ It was something she did."

We looked at each other a moment. “ Did ? " I
echoed. " Did to whom ? "

“ She won't tell me — she says she can't. She tries
to bring it out, but it sticks in her throat."

" Nonsense. She did nothing," I said.

“ What could she do ? " Helen asked, gazing
at me.

“ She’s ill, she’s in a fever, her mind's wandering.”

" So I say to her father."

" And what does she say to him ? ”

“ Nothing — she won’t speak to him. He’s with
her now, but she only lies there letting him hold
her hand, with her face turned away from him and
her eyes closed."

" You must send for the doctor immediately."

" I’ve already sent for him."

" Should you like me to sit up with her ? "

“ Oh, I’ll do that ! " Helen said. Then she a<=ked :
" But if you were there the other day, what rid you
see ? "

“ Nothing whatever," I resolutely answered.

" Really nothing ? ”

" Really, my dear child."

“ But was there nobody there who could have
made up to her ? ”

I hesitated a moment. " My poor Helen, you
should have seen them ! ”

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“ She wouldn’t look at anybody that wasn’t
remarkably nice,” Helen mused.

“ Well — I don’t want to abuse your friends — but
nobody was remarkably nice. Belifeve me, she hasn’t
looked at anybody, and nothing whatever has occurred.
She’s ill, and it's a mere morbid fancy.”

“ It’s a mere morbid fancy ! ” Mrs. Chantry

gobbled down this formula. I felt that I was giving
her another still more acceptable, and which she as
promptly adopted, when I added that Louisa would
soon get over it.

1 may as well say at once that Louisa never got
over it. There followed an extraordinary week,
which I look back upon as one of the most uncom-
fortable of my life. The doctor had something to
say about the action of his patient’s heart — it was
weak and slightly irregular, and he was anxious to
learn whether she had lately been exposed to any
violent shock or emotion — but he could give no
name to the disorder under the influence of which
she had begun unmistakably to sink. She lay on
the sofa in her room — she refused to go to bed, and
in the absence of complications it was not insisted
on — utterly white, weak and abstracted, shaking
her head at all suggestion, waving away all nourish-
ment save the infinitesimally little that enabled her
to stretch out her hand from time to time (at intervals
of very unequal length) and begin “ Mother, mother ! ”
as if she were mustering courage for a supreme con-
fession. The courage never came ; she was haunted
by a strange impulse to speak, which in turn was
checked on her lips by some deeper horror or some
stranger fear. She seemed to seek relief spasmodic-
ally from some unforgettable consciousness and then
to find the greatest relief of all in impenetrable
silence. I knew these things only from her mother,
for before me (I went gently in and out of her room

9 1

THE VISITS

two or three times a day) she gave no sign whatever.
The little local doctor, after the first day, acknow-
ledged himself at sea and expressed a desire to consult
with a colleague St Exeter. The colleague journeyed
down to us and shuffled and stammered : he recom-
mended an appeal to a high authority in London.
The high authority was summoned by telegraph and
paid us a flying visit. He enunciated the valuable
opinion that it was a very curious case and dropped
the striking remark that in so charming a home a
young lady ought to bloom like a flower. The young
lady’s late hostess came over., but she could throw no
light on anything : all that she had ever noticed was
that Louisa had seemed “ rather blue " for a day or
two before she brought her visit to a close. Our
days were dismal enough and our nights were dread-
ful, for I took turns with Helen in sitting up with the
girl. Chantry Court itself' seemed conscious of the
riddle that made its chambers ache ; it bowed its
grey old head over the fate of its daughter. The
people who had been coming were put off ; dinner
became a ceremony enacted mainly by the servants.

I sat alone with Christopher Chantry, whose honest
hair, in his mystification, stuck out as if he had been
overhauling accounts. My hours with Louisa were
even more intensely silent, for she almost never
looked at me. In the watches of the night, however,
I at last saw more clearly into what she was thinking
of. Once when I caught her wan eyes resting upon
me I took advantage of it to kneel down by her bed
and speak to her with the utmost tenderness.

“ If you can’t say it to your mother, can you say
it perhaps to me ? ”

She gazed at me for some time. “ What does it
matter now — if I’m dying ? ”

I shook my head and smiled. " You won’t die
if you get it off your mind.”

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" You’d be cruel to him,” she said. " He’s inno-
cent — he's innocent.”

“ Do you mean you’re guilty ? What trifle are
you magnifying ? ”

“ Do you call it a trifle ? ” She faltered and

paused.

“ Certainly I do, my dear.” Then I risked a
great stroke. “ I’ve often done it myself ! ”

“ You ? Never, never ! I was cruel to him,”
she added.

This puzzled me ; I couldn’t work it into my
conception. ” How were you cruel ? ”

“ In the garden. I changed suddenly, I drove
him away, I told him he filled me with horror.”

“ Why did you do that ? ”

” Because my shame came over me.”

" Your shame ? ”

“ What I had done in the house.”

“ And what had you done ? ”

She lay a few moments with her eyes closed, as
if she were living it over. “ I broke out to him, I
told him,” she began at last. But she couldn’t
continue, she was powerless to utter it.

“Yes, I know what you told him. Millions of
girls have told young men that before.”

" They’ve been asked, they've been asked ! They
didn’t speak first ! I didn't even know him, he
didn’t care for me, I had seen him for the first time
the day before. I said strange things to him, and
he behaved like a gentleman.”

“ Well he might ! ”

“ Then before he could turn round, when we had
simply walked out of the house together and strolled
in the garden — it was as if I were borne along in the
air by the wonder of what I had said — it rolled over
me that I was lost.”

“ Lost ? ”

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THE VISITS

" That I had been horrible — that I had been mad.
“Nothing could ever unsay it. I frightened him —
I almost struck him.”

“ Poor fellow *” I smiled.

“ Yes — pity him. He was kind. But he’ll see
me that way — always ! ”

I hesitated as to the answer it was best to make
to this ; then I produced : “ Don’t think he’ll

remember you — he’ll see other girls.”

“ Ah, he’ll f of get me ! ” she softly and miserably
wailed ; and I saw that I had said the wrong thing.
I bent over her more closely, to kiss her, and when
I raised my head her mother was on the other side of
the bed. She fell on her knees there for the same
purpose, and when Louisa felt her lips she stretched
out her arms to embrace her. She had the strength
to draw her close, and I heard her begin again, for
the hundredth time, “ Mother, mother ”

“ Yes, my own darling.”

Then for the hundredth time I heard her stop.
There was an intensity in her silence. It made me
wildly nervous ; I got up and turned away.

“ Mother, mother,” the girl repeated, and poor
Helen replied with a sound of passionate solicitation.
But her daughter only exhaled in the waiting hush,
while I stood at the window where the dawn was faint,
the most miserable moan in the world. “I'm dying,”
she said, articulately ; and she died that night, after
an hour, unconscious. The doctor arrived almost at
the moment ; this time he was sure it must have been
the heart. The poor parents were in stupefaction,
and I gave up half my visits and stayed with them
a month. But in spite of their stupefaction I kept
my vow.

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THE WHEEL OF TIMli

95

I

“ And your daughter ? ” said Lady Greyswood ;
“ tell me about her. She must be nice."

“ Oh, yes, she’s nice enough. She’s a great com-
fort." Mrs. Knocker hesitated a moment, then she
went on : “ Unfortunately she’s not good-looking —
not a bit."

“ That doesn’t matter, when they’re not ill-
natured," rejoined, insincerely, Lady Greyswood,
who had the remains of great beauty.

“ Oh, but poor Fanny is quite extraordinarily
plain. I assure you it does matter. She knows it
herself ; she suffers from it. It’s the sort of thing
that makes a great difference in a girl’s life."

" But if she’s charming, if she's clever ! " said
Lady Greyswood, with more benevolence than logic.
“ I’ve known plain women who were liked."

“ Do you mean me, my dear ? ” her old friend
straightforwardly inquired. " But I'm not so awfully
liked!"

“ You ? " Lady Greyswood exclaimed. " Why,
you're grand ! "

"I’m not so repulsive as I was when I was young
perhaps, but that's not saying much."

“ As when you were young ! " laughed Lady
Greyswood. " You sweet thing, you are young. I
thought India dried people up."

“ Oh, when you’re a mummy to begin with ! ”
Mrs. Knocker returned, with her trick of self-abase-

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,ment. " Of course I've not been such a fool as to
keep my children there. My girl is clever/' she con-
tinued, " but she’s afraid to show it. Therefore you
may judge whetHer, with her unfortunate appearance,
she’s charming.”

“ She shall show it to me ! You must let me do
everything for her.”

” Does that include finding her a husband ? I
should like her to show it to some one who'll marry
her.”

" V 11 marry her ! ” said Lady Greyswood, who was
handsomer than ever when she laughed and looked
capable.

“ What a blessing to meet you this way on the
threshold of home ! I give you notice that I shall
cling to you. But that’s what I meant ; that's the
thing the want of beauty makes so difficult — as if it
were not difficult enough at the best.”

” My dear child, one meets plenty of ugly women
with husbands,” Lady Greyswood argued, “ and often
with very nice ones.”

“ Yes, mine is very nice. There are men who
don't mind one’s face, for whom beauty isn't indis-
pensable, but they are rare. I don't understand
them. If I’d been a man about to marry I should
have gone in for looks. However, the poor child will
have something,” Mrs. Knocker continued.

Lady Greyswood rested thoughtful eyes on her.
“ Do you mean she'll be well off ? ”

“ We shall do everything we can for her. We’re
not in such misery as we used to be. We’ve managed
to save in India, strange to say, and six months ago
my husband came into money (more than we had
ever dreamed of), by the death of his poor brother.
We feel quite opulent (it's rather nice !) and we should
expect to do something decent for our daughter. I
don’t mind its being known.”

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“ It shall be known ! ” said Lady Greyswood,
getting up. “ Leave the dear child to me ! ” The
old friends embraced, for the porter of the hotel had
come in to say that the carriage ordered for her lady-
ship was at the door. They had met in Paris by the
merest chance, in the court of an inn, after a separa-
tion of years, just as Lady Greyswood was going home.
She had been to Aix-les-Bains early in the season and
was resting on her way back to England. Mrs.
Knocker and the General, bringing their eastern exile
to a close, had arrived only the night before from
Marseilles and were to wait in Paris for their children,
a tall girl and two younger boys, who, inevitably
dissociated from their parents, had been for the past
two years with a devoted aunt, their father's maiden
sister, at Heidelberg. The reunion of the family
was to take place with jollity in Paris, whither this
good lady was now hurrying with her drilled and
demoralised charges. Mrs. Knocker had come to
England to sec them two years before, and the period
at Heidelberg had been planned during this visit.
With the termination of her husband’s service a new
life opened before them all, and they had plans of
comprehensive rejoicing for the summer — plans in-
volving, however, a continuance, for a few months,
of useful foreign opportunities, during which various
questions connected with the organisation of a final
home in England were practically to be dealt with.
There was to be a salubrious house on the continent,
taken in some neighbourhood that would both yield
a stimulus to plain Fanny’s French (her German was
much commended), and permit of frequent “ running
over ” for the General. With these preoccupations
Mrs. Knocker, after her delightful encounter with
Lady Greyswood, was less keenly conscious of the
variations of destiny than she had been when, at the
age of twenty, that intimate friend of her youth,

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THE WHEEL OF TIME

beautiful, lovable and about to be united to a noble-
man of ancient name, was brightly, almost insolently
alienated. The less attractive of the two girls had
married only several years later, and her marriage
had perhaps emphasised the divergence of their ways.
To-day, however, the inequality, as Mrs. Knocker
would have phrased it, rather dropped out of the
impression produced by the somewhat wasted and
faded dowager, exquisite still, but unexpectedly
appealing, who made no secret (an attempt that in
an age of such publicity would have been useless) of
what she had had, in vulgar parlance, to put up with,
or of her having been left badly off. She had spoken
of her children — she had had no less than six — but
she had evidently thought it better not to speak of
her husband. That somehow made up, on Mrs.
Knocker’s part, for some ancient aches.

It was not till a year after this incident that, one
day in London, in her little house in Queen Street,
Lady Greyswood said to her third son, Maurice — the
one she was fondest of, the one who on his own side
had given her most signs of affection :

“ I don’t see what there is for you but to marry a
girl of a certain fortune.”

“ Oh, that’s not my line ! I may be an idiot, but
I’m not mercenary,” the young man declared. He
was not an idiot, but there was an examination, rather
stiff indeed, to which, without success, he had gone
up twice. The diplomatic service was closed to liim
by this catastrophe ; nothing else appeared paiticu-
larly open ; he was terribly at leisure. There had
been a theory none the less that he was the ablest
of the family. Two of his brothers had been squeezed
into the army and had declared rather crudely that
they would do their best to keep Maurice out. They
were not put to any trouble in this respect, however,
as he professed a complete indifference to the trade
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THE WHEEL OF TIME

of arms. His mother, who was vague about every-
thing except the idea that people ought to like him,
if only for his extraordinary good looks, thought it
strange there shouldn’t be some opening for him in
political life, or something to be picked up even in
the City. But no bustling borough solicited the
advantage of his protection, no eminent statesman in
want of a secretary took him by the hand, no great
commercial house had been keeping a stool for him.
Maurice, in a word, was not " approached ” from any
quarter, and meanwhile he was as irritating as the
intending traveller who allows you the pleasure of
looking out his railway - connections. Poor Lady
Greyswood fumbled the social Bradshaw in vain.
The young man had only one marked taste, with
which his mother saw no way to deal — an invincible
passion for photography. He was perpetually taking
shots at his friends, but she couldn't open premises
for him in Baker Street. He smoked endless cigarettes
— she was sure they made him languid. She would
have been more displeased with him if she had not
felt so vividly that some one ought to do something
for him ; nevertheless, she almost lost patience at
his remark about not being mercenary. She was
on the point of asking him what he called it to live
on his relations, but she checked the words as she
remembered that she herself was the only one who
did much for him. Nevertheless, as she hated open
professions of disinterestedness, she replied that that
was a nonsensical tone. Whatever one should get in
such a way one would give quite as much, even if it
didn’t happen to be money ; and when he inquired
in return what it was (beyond the disgrace of his
failures) that she judged a fellow like him would bring
to his bride, she replied that he would bring himself,
his personal qualities (she didn't like to be more
definite about his appearance), his name, his descent,
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THE WHEEL OF TIME

his connexions — good honest commodities all, for
which any girl of proper feeling would be glad to pay.
Such a name as that of the Glanvils was surely worth
something, and she appealed to him to try what he
could do with it.

“ Surely I can do something better with it than
sell it/’ said Maurice.

" I should like then very much to hear what,"
she replied very calmly, waiting reasonably for his
answer. She waited to no purpose ; the question
baffled him, like those of his examinations. She
explained that she meant of course that he should
care for the girl, who might easily have a worse fault
than the command of bread and butter. To humour
her, for he was always good-natured, he said after a
moment, smiling :

“ Dear mother, is she pretty ? "

“ Is who pretty ? "

" The young lady you have in your eye. Of
course I see you’ve picked her out."

She coloured slightly at this — she had planned a
more gradual revelation. For an instant she thought
of saying that she had only had a general idea, for
the form of his question embarrassed her ; but on
reflexion she determined to be frank and practical.
" Well, I confess I am thinking of a girl — a very nice
one. But she hasn’t great beauty."

“ Oh, then it’s of no use.”

“ But she’s delightful, and she’ll have thnty
thousand pounds down, to say nothing of expecta-
tions."

Maurice Glanvil looked at his mother. “ She
must be hideous — for you to admit it. Therefore
if she’s rich she becomes quite impossible ; for how
can a fellow have the air of having been bribed with
gold to marry a monster ? ”

“ Fanny Knocker isn’t the least a monster, and I
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THE WHEEL OF TIME

can see that she’ll improve. She’s tall, and she’s
quite strong, and there’s nothing at all disagreeable
about her. Remember that you can’t have every-
thing.”

“ I thought you contended that I could ! ” said
Maurice, amused at his mother’s description of her
young friend's charms. He had never heard any one
damned, as regards that sort of thing, with fainter
praise. He declared that he would be perfectly
capable of marrying a poor girl, but that the prime
necessity in any young person he should think of
would be the possession of a face — to put it at the
least — that it would give him positive pleasure to
look at. "I don’t ask for much, but I do ask for
beauty,” he went on. ,f My eye must be gratified —
I must have a wife I can photograph.”

Lady Greyswood was tempted to answer that he
himself had good looks enough to make a handsome
couple, but she withheld the remark as injudicious,
though effective, for it was a part of her son's ami-
ability that he appeared to have no conception of his
plastic side. He would have been disgusted if she
had put it forward ; if he had the ideal he had just
described it was not because his own profile was his
standard. What she herself saw in it was a force for
coercing heiresses. She had, however, to be patient,
and she promised herself to be adroit ; which was
all the easier as she really liked Fanny Knocker.

The girl’s parents had at last taken a house in
Ennismore Gardens, and the friend of her mother’s
youth had been confronted with the question of
redeeming the pledges uttered in Paris. This un-
sophisticated and united family, with relations to
visit and schoolboys’ holidays to outlive, had spent
the winter in the country and had but lately begun
to talk of itself, extravagantly of course, through
Mrs. Knocker’s droll lips, as open to social attentions. ■
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THE WHEEL OF TIME

Lady Greyswood had not been false to her vows ;
she had on the contrary recognised from the first
that, if he could only be made to see it, Fanny
Knocker would be just the person to fill out poor
Maurice’s blanks. She had kept this confidence to
herself, but it had made her very kind to the young
lady. One of the forms of this kindness had been an
ingenuity in keeping her from coming to Queen Street
until Maurice should have been prepared. Was he to
be regarded as prepared now that he asserted he would
have nothing to do with Miss Knocker ? This was a
question that worried Lady Greyswood, who at any
rate said to herself that she had told him the worst.
Her idea had been to sound her old friend only after
the young people should have met and Fanny should
have fallen in love. Such a catastrophe for Fanny
belonged for Lady Greyswood to that order of con-
venience that she could always take for granted.

She had found the girl, as she expected, ugly and
awkward, but had also discovered a charm of character
in her intelligent timidity. No one knew better than
this observant woman how thankless a task in general
it was in London to “ take out " a plain girl ; she
had seen the nicest creatures, in the brutality of balls,
participate only through wistful, almost tearful eyes ;
her little drawing-room, at intimate hours, had been
shaken by the confidences of desperate mothers.
None the less she felt sure that Fanny’s path would
not be rugged ; thirty thousand pounds were a fine
set of features, and her anxiety was rather on the
score of the expectations of the young lady’s parents.
Mrs. Knocker had dropped remarks suggestive of a
high imagination, of the conviction that there might
be a real efficacy in what they were doing for their
daughter. The danger, in other words, might well
be that no younger son need apply — a possibility that
made Lady Greyswood take all her precautions. The
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acceptability of her favourite child was consistent
with the rejection of those of other people — on which
indeed it even directly depended. She remembered
on the other hand the proverb about taking your
horse to the water ; the crystalline spring of her young
friend's homage might overflow, but she couldn’t
compel her boy to drink. The clever way was to
break down his prejudice — to get him to consent to
give poor Fanny a chance. Therefore if she was
careful not to worry him she let him see her project
as something patient and deeply wise ; she had the
air of waiting resignedly for the day on which, in
the absence of other solutions, he would say to her :
“ Well, let me have a look at my fate ! " Meanwhile,
moreover, she was nothing if not conscientious, and
as she had made up her mind about the girl's sus-
ceptibility she had a scruple against exposing her.
This exposure would not be justified so long as
Maurice’s theoretic rigour should remain unabated.

She felt virtuous in carrying her scruple to the
point of rudeness ; she knew that Jane Knocker
wondered why, though so attentive in a hundred
ways, she had never definitely included the poor
child in any invitation to Queen Street. There came
a moment when it gave her pleasure to suspect that
her old friend had begun to explain this omission by
the idea of a positive exaggeration of good faith — an
honest recognition of the detrimental character of the
young man in ambush there. As Maurice, though
much addicted to kissing his mother at home, never
dangled about her in public, he had remained a
mythical figure to Mrs. Knocker : he had been absent
(culpably — there was a touch of the inevitable in-
civility in it) on each of the occasions on which, after
their arrival in London, she and her husband dined
with Lady Greyswood. This astute woman knew that
her delightful Jane was whimsical enough to be excited
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good-humouredly by a mystery : she might very well
want to make Maurice’s acquaintance in just the
degree in which she guessed that his mother's high
sense of honour kept him out of the way. Moreover,
she desired intensely that her daughter should have
the sort of experience that would help her to take
confidence. Lady Greyswood knew that no one had
as yet asked the girl to dinner and that this particular
attention was the one for which her mother would
be most grateful. No sooner had she arrived at these
illuminations than, with deep diplomacy, she requested
the pleasure of the company of her dear Jane and the >
General. Mrs. Knocker accepted with delight — she
always accepted with delight — so that nothing re-
mained for Lady Greyswood but to make sure of
Maurice in advance. After this was done she had
only to wait. When the dinner, on a day very near
at hand, took place (she had jumped at the first even-
ing on which the Knockers were free), she had the
gratification of seeing her prevision exactly fulfilled.
Her whimsical Jane had thrown the game into her
hands, had been taken at the very last moment with
one of her Indian headaches and, infinitely apologetic
and explanatory, had hustled poor Fanny off with the
General. The girl, flurried and frightened by her
responsibility, sat at dinner next to Maurice, who
behaved beautifully — not in the least as the victim of
a trick ; and when a fortnight later Lady Greyswood
was able to divine that her mind from that evening
had been filled with a virginal ecstasy, she was also
fortunately able to feel serenely, delightfully guiltless.

106

II

She knew this fact about Fanny's mind, she believed,
some time before Jane Knocker knew it ; but she also
had reason to think that Jane Knocker had known
it for some time before she spoke of it. It was not
till the middle of June, after a succession of encounters
between the young people, that her old friend came
one morning to discuss the circumstance. Mrs.
Knocker asked her if she suspected it, and she promptly
replied that it had never occurred to her. She added
that she was extremely sorry and that it had probably
in the first instance been the fault of that injudicious
dinner.

“ Ah, the day of my headache — my miserable
headache ? ” said her visitor. “Yes, very likely that
did it. He’s so dreadfully good-looking.”

“ Poor child, he can’t help that. Neither can I ! ”
Lady Greyswood ventured to add.

“ He comes by it honestly. He seems very nice.”

“ He’s nice enough, but he hasn’t a farthing,
you know, and his expectations are nil .” They
considered, they turned the matter about, they
wondered what they had better do. In the first
place there was no room for doubt ; of course Mrs.
Knocker hadn't sounded the girl, but a mother, a
true mother was never reduced to that. If Fanny
was in every relation of life so painfully, so constitu-
tionally awkward, the still depths of her shyness, of
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her dissimulation even, in such a predicament as this,
might easily be imagined. She would give no sign
tl^pshe could possibly smother, she would say nothing
and do nothing; watching herself, poor child, with
trepidation ; but she would suffer, and some day when
the question of her future should really come up — it
might after all in the form of some good proposal —
they would find themselves beating against a closed
door. That was what they had to think of ; that
was why Mrs. Knocker had come over. Her old
friend cross-examined her with a troubled face, but she
was very impressive with her reasons, her intuitions.

“ I'll send him away in a moment, if you'd like
that,” Lady Greys wood said at last. “ I’ll try and
get him to go abroad.”

Her visitor made no direct reply to this, and no
reply at all for some moments. “ What does he
expect to do — what does he want to do ? ” she asked.

" Oh, poor boy, he’s looking — he’s trying to decide.
He asks nothing of any one. If he would only knock
at a few doors ! But he’s too proud.”

“ Do you call him very clever ? ” Fanny's mother
demanded.

“Yes, decidedly — and good and kind and true.
But he has been unlucky.”

“ Of course he can’t bear her ! ” said Mrs. Knocker
with a little dry laugh.

Lady Greyswood stared ; then she broke out :
“ Do you mean you’d be willing ? ”

“ He’s very charming.”

“ Ah, but you must have great ideas.”

“ He's very well connected,” said Mrs. Knocker,
snapping the tight elastic on her umbrella.

“ Oh, my dear Jane — ‘ connected ' ! ” Lady Greys-
wood gave a sigh of the sweetest irony.

“ He’s connected with you, to begin with.”

Lady Greyswood put out her hand and held her
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visitor's for a moment. " Of course it isn’t as if he
were a different sort of person. Of course I should
like it ! ” she added.

" Does he dislike her very much ?*”

Lady Greyswood looked at her friend with a smile.
“ He resembles Fanny — he doesn’t tell. But what
would her father say ? ” she went on.

“ He doesn’t know it.”

” You’ve not talked with him ? ”

Mrs. Knocker hesitated a moment. “ He thinks
she’s all right.” Both the ladies laughed a little at
the density of men ; then the visitor said : “I wanted
to see you first.”

This circumstance gave Lady Greyswood food for
thought ; it suggested comprehensively that in spite
of a probable deficiency of zeal on the General's part
the worthy man would not be the great obstacle.
She had begun so quickly to turn over in her mind
the various ways in which this new phase of the
business might make it possible the real obstacle
should be surmounted that she scarcely heard her
companion say next : ” The General will only want
his daughter to be happy. He has no definite
ambitions for her. I daresay Maurice could make
him like him.” It was something more said by her
companion about Maurice that sounded sharply
through her reverie. ” But unless the idea appeals
to him a bit there's no use talking about it.”

At this Lady Greyswood spoke with decision.
” It shall appeal to him. Leave it to me ! Kiss
your dear child for me,” she added as the ladies
embraced and separated.

In the course of the day she made up her mind,
and when she again broached the question to her
son (it befell that very evening) she felt that she
stood on firmer ground. She began by mentioning
to him that her dear old friend had the same charm-
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ing dream — for the girl — that she had ; she sketched
with a light hand a picture of their preconcerted
happiness in the union of their children. When he
replied that he Wouldn’t for the life of him imagine
what the Knockers could see in a poor beggar of a
younger son who had publicly come a cropper, she
took pains to prove that he was as good as any one
else and much better than many of the young men
to whom persons of sense were often willing to con-
fide their daughters. She had been in much tribula-
tion over the circumstance announced to her in the
morning, not knowing whether, in her present enter-
prise, to keep it back or put it forward. If Maurice
should happen not to take it in the right way it was
the sort of thing that might dish the whole experi-
ment. He might be bored, he might be annoyed,
he might be horrified — there was no limit, in such
cases, to the perversity, to the possible brutality of
even the most amiable man. On the other hand
he might be pleased, touched, flattered — if he didn't
dislike the girl too much. Lady Greyswood could
indeed imagine that it might be unpleasant to know
that a person who was disagreeable to you was in
love with you ; so that there was just that risk to
run. - She determined to run it only if there should
be absolutely no other card to play. Meanwhile she
said : “ Don’t you see, now, how intelligent she is, in
her quiet way, and how perfect she is at home — with-
out any nonsense or affectation or ill-nature ? She’s
not a bit stupid, she’s remarkably clever. She can
do a lot of things ; she has no end of talents. Many
girls with a quarter of her abilities would make five
times the show.”

“ My dear mother, she’s a great swell, I freely
admit it. She’s far too good for me. What in the
world puts it into your two heads that she would
look at me ? ”

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At this Lady Greyswood was tempted to speak ;
but after an instant she said instead : “ She has
looked at you, and you’ve seen how. You’ve seen
her several times now, and she has been remarkably
nice to you."

“ Nice ? Ah, poor girl, she's frightened to death ! ’’

“ Believe me — I read her," Lady Greyswood
replied.

“ She knows she has money and she thinks I'm
after it. She thinks I'm a ravening wolf and she’s
scared.”

“ I happen to know as a fact that she's in love
with you ! " Before she could check herself Lady
Greyswood had played her card, and though she
held her breath a little after doing so she felt that
it had been a good moment. " If I hadn’t known
it," she hastened further to declare, “ I should never
have said another word." Maurice burst out laugh-
ing — how in the world did she know it ? When she
put the evidence before him she had the pleasure of
seeing that he listened without irritation ; and this
emboldened her to say : " Don't you think you could
try to like her ? "

Maurice was lounging on a sofa opposite to her ;
jocose but embarrassed, he had thrown back his head,
and while he stretched himself his eyes wandered over
the upper expanse of the room. “ It's very kind of
her and of her mother, and I'm much obliged and all
that, though a fellow feels rather an ass in talking
about such a thing. Of course also I don't pretend —
before such a proof of wisdom — that I think her in

the least a fool. But, oh, dear ! ” And the

young man broke off with laughing impatience, as if
he had too much to say. His mother waited an
instant, then she uttered a persuasive, interrogative
sound, and he went on : “ It's only a pity she’s so
awful ! "

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“ So awful ? ” murmured Lady Greyswood.

“ Dear mother, she’s about as ugly a woman as
ever turned round on you. If there were only just
a touch or two lfess of it ! ”

Lady Greyswood got up : she stood looking in
silence at the tinted shade of the lamp. She re-
mained in this position so long that he glanced at
her — he was struck with the sadness in her face.
He would have been in error, however, if he had
suspected that this sadness was assumed for the
purpose of showing him that she was wounded by
his resistance, for the reflexion that his last words
caused her to make was as disinterested as it was
melancholy. Here was an excellent, a charming
girl — a girl, she was sure, with a rare capacity for
devotion — whose future was reduced to nothing by
the mere accident, in her face, of a certain want of
drawing. A man could settle her fate with a laugh,
could give her away with a snap of his fingers. She
seemed to see Maurice administer to poor Fanny’s
image the little displeased shove with which he would
have disposed of an ill-seasoned dish. Moreover, he
greatly exaggerated. Her heart grew heavy with a
sense of the hardness of the lot of women, and when
she looked again at her son there were tears in her
eyes that startled him. " Poor girl — poor girl ! ”
she simply sighed, in a tone that was to reverberate
in his mind and to constitute in doing so a real appeal
to his imagination. After a moment she added :
“ We’ll talk no more about her — no, no ! ”

All the same she went three days later to see
Mrs. Knocker and say to her : “ My dear creature,
I think it’s all right.”

'* Do you mean he'll take us up ? ”

" He'll come and see you, and you must give him
plenty of chances.” What Lady Greyswood would
have liked to be able to say, crudely and comfortably,
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was : “ He’ll try to manage it — he promises to do
what he can.” What she did say, however, was :
" He’s greatly prepossessed in the dear child’s favour.”

” Then I dare say he'll be very nice.”

“ If I didn’t think he’d behave like a gentleman
I wouldn’t raise a finger. The more he sees of her
the more he’ll be sure to like her.”

“ Of course with poor Fanny that's the only thing
one can build on,” said Mrs. Knocker. ” There’s so
much to get over.”

Lady Greyswood hesitated a moment. “ Maurice
has got over it. But I should tell you that at first
he doesn't want it known.”

“ Doesn’t want what known ? ”

” Why, the footing on which he comes. You see
it’s just the least bit experimental.”

” For what do you take me? ” asked Mrs. Knocker.
“ The child shall never dream that anything has
passed between us. No more, of course, shall her
father.”

“ It’s too delightful of you to leave it that way,”
Lady Greyswood replied. “ We must surround her
happiness with every safeguard.”

Mrs. Knocker sat pensive for some moments.
“ So that if nothing comes of it there's no harm
done ? That idea — that nothing may come of it —
makes one a little nervous,” she added.

“ Of course I can't absolutely answer for my poor
boy ! ” said Lady Greyswood, with just the faintest
ring of impatience. “ But he's much affected by
what he knows — I told him. That’s what moves
him.”

” He must, of course, be perfectly free.”

” The great thing is for her not to know.”

Mrs. Knocker considered. “ Are you very sure ? ”
She had apparently had a profounder second thought.

” Why, my dear — with the risk ! ”
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“ Isn’t the risk, after all, greater the other way ?
Mayn’t it help the matter on, mayn’t it do the poor
child a certain degree of good, the idea that, as you
say, he’s prepossessed in her favour ? It would
perhaps cheer her up, as it were, and encourage her,
so that by the very fact of being happier about herself
she may make a better impression. That’s what she
wants, poor thing — to be helped to hold up her head,
to take herself more seriously, to believe that people
can like her. And fancy, when it’s a case of such a
beautiful young man who’s all ready to ! ”

“Yes, he’s all ready to,’’ Lady Greyswood con-
ceded. “ Of course it’s a question for your own dis-
cretion. I can’t advise you, for you know your child.
But it seems to me a case for tremendous caution.’’

“ Oh, trust me for that ! ’’ said Mrs. Knocker.
“ We shall be very kind to him,” she smiled, as her
visitor got up.

“ He’ll appreciate that. But it’s too nice of you
to leave it so.”

Mrs. Knocker gave a hopeful shrug. “ He has
only to be civil to Blake ! ”

“ Ah, he isn't a brute ! ” Lady Greyswood ex-
claimed, caressing her.

After this she passed a month of no little anxiety.
She asked her son no question, and for two or three
weeks he offered her no other information than to
say two or three times that Miss Knocker really
could ride ; but she learned from her old friend
everything she wanted to know. Immediately alter
the conference of the two ladies, Maurice, in the Kow,
had taken an opportunity of making up to the girl.
She rode every day with her father, and Maurice
rode, though possessed of nothing in life to put a leg
across ; and he had been so well received that this
proved the beginning of a custom. He had a canter
with the young lady most days in the week, and
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when they parted it was usually to meet again in the
evening. His relations with the household in Ennis-
more Gardens were indeed not left greatly to his
initiative ; he became on the spot the subject of
perpetual invitations and arrangements, the centre
of the friendliest manoeuvres ; so that Lady Greys-
wood was struck with Jane Knocker's feverish energy
in the good cause — the ingenuity, the bribery, the
cunning that an exemplary mother might be inspired
to practise. She herself did nothing, she left it all
to poor Jane, and this perhaps gave her for the
moment a sense of contemplative superiority. She
wondered if she would in any circumstances have
plotted so almost fiercely for one of her children. She
was glad her old friend's design had her full appro-
bation ; she held her breath a little when she said to
herself : “ Suppose I hadn’t liked it — suppose it had
been for Chumleigh ! ” Chumleigh was the present
Lord Greyswood, whom his mother still called by
his earlier designation. Fanny Knocker's thirty
thousand would have been by no mCans enough for
Chumleigh. Lady Greyswood, in spite of her sus-
pense, was detached enough to be amused when her
accomplice told her that “ Blake " had said that
Maurice really could ride. The two mothers thanked
God for the riding — the riding would see them through.
Lady Greyswood had watched Fanny narrowly in
the Park, where, in the saddle, she looked no worse
than lots of girls. She had no idea how Maurice got
his mounts — she knew Chumleigh had none to give
him ; but there were directions in which she - would
have encouraged him to incur almost any liability.
He was evidently amused and beguiled ; he fell into
comfortable attitudes on the soft cushions that were
laid for him and partook with relish of the dainties
that were served ; he had his fill of the theatres, of
the opera — entertainments of which he was fond.
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She could see he didn't care for the sort of people he
met in Ennismore Gardens, but this didn't matter :
so much as that she didn’t ask of him. She knew
that when he should have something to tell her he
would speak ; and meanwhile she pretended to be a
thousand miles away. The only thing that worried
her was that he had dropped photography. She
said to Mrs. Knocker more than once : “ Does he
make love ? — that's what I want to know ! ” to
which this lady replied with her incongruous drollery :
“ My dear, how can I make out ? He’s so little like
Blake ! ” But she added that she believed Fanny
was intensely happy. Lady Greyswood had been
struck with the girl’s looking so, and she rejoiced to
be able to declare in perfectly good faith that she
thought her greatly improved. " Didn't I tell you ? ”
returned Mrs. Knocker to this with a certain accent
of triumph. It made Lady Greyswood nervous, for
she took it to mean that Fanny had had a hint from
her mother of Maurice’s possible intentions. She
was afraid to ask her old friend directly if this were
definitely true : poor Fanny’s improvement was
after all not a gain sufficient to make up for the
cruelty that would reside in the sense of being
rejected.

One day, in Queen Street, Maurice said in an
abrupt, conscientious way : “You were right about
Fanny Knocker — she's a remarkably clever and a
thoroughly nice girl ; a fellow can really talk with
her. But oh mother ! ”

“ Well, my dear ? ’’

The young man’s face wore a strange smile.
“ Oh mother ! ” he expressively, quite tragically
repeated. “ But it’s all right ! " he presently added
in a different tone, and Lady Greyswood was re-
assured. This confidence, however, received a shock
a little later, on the evening of a day that had been
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intensely hot. A torrid wave had passed over
London, and in the suffocating air the pleasures of
the season had put on a purple face. Lady Greys-
wood, whose own fine lowness of tone no temperature
could affect, knew, in her bedimmed drawing-room,
exactly the detail of her son's engagements. She
pitied him — she had managed to keep clear ; she had
in particular a vision of a distribution of prizes, by
one of the princesses, at a big horticultural show ;
she saw the sweltering starers (and at what, after
all ?) under a huge glass roof, while there passed
before her, in a blur of crimson, the glimpse of uncom-
fortable cheeks under an erratic white bonnet,
together also with the sense that some of Jane
Knocker's ideas of pleasure were of the oddest (she
had such lacunes), and some of the ordeals to which
she exposed poor Fanny singularly ill-chosen. Maurice
came in, perspiring but pale (nothing could make
him ugly !) to dress for dinner, and though he was in
a great hurry he found time to pant : “ Oh mother,
what I’m going through for you ! ”

" Do you mean rushing about so — in this weather ?
We shall have a change to-night.”

" I hope so ! There are people for whom it
doesn’t do at all ; ah, not a bit ! " said Maurice
with a laugh that she didn’t fancy. But he went
upstairs before she could think of anything to reply,
and after he had dressed he passed out without speak-
ing to her again. The next morning, on entering her
room, her maid mentioned as a delicate duty that
Mr. Glanvil, whose door stood wide open and whose
bed was untouched, had apparently not yet come in.
While, however, her ladyship was in the first freshness
of meditation on this singular fact the morning’s
letters were brought up, and as it happened that the
second envelope she glanced at was addressed in
Maurice's hand she was quickly in possession of an
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explanation still more startling than his absence. He
wrote from a club, at nine o’clock the previous evening,
to announce that he was taking the night train for
the continent. He hadn’t dressed for dinner, he
had dressed otherwise, and having stuffed a few
things with surreptitious haste into a Gladstone bag,
had slipped unperceived out of the house and into a
hansom. He had sent to Ennismore Gardens, from
his club, an apology — a request he should not be
waited for ; and now he should just have time to get
to Charing Cross. He was off he didn’t know where,
but he was off he did know why. “ You'll know
why, dear mother, too, I think,” this wonderful com-
munication continued ; " you’ll know why, because
I haven't deceived you. I've done what I could, but
I’ve broken down. I felt to-day that it was no use ;
there was a moment, at that beastly exhibition,
when I saw it, when the question was settled. The
truth rolled over me in a stifling wave. After that I
made up my mind there was nothing to do but to
bolt. I meant to put it off till to-morrow, and to tell
you first, but while I was dressing to-day it struck
me irresistibly that my true course is to break now
— never to enter the house or go near her again. I
was -afraid of a scene with you about this. I
haven’t uttered a word of ‘ love ’ to her (heaven
save us !), but my position this afternoon became
definitely false, and that fact prescribes the course I
am taking. You shall hear from me again in a day
or two. I have the greatest regard for her, but I
can’t bear to look at her. I don’t care a bit for money,
but, hang it, 1 must have beauty ! Please send me
twenty pounds, poste restante, Boulogne."

“ What I want, Jane, is to get at this,” Lady
Greyswood said, later in the day, with an austerity
that was sensible even through her tears. “ Does
the child know, or doesn’t she, what was at stake ? ”
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“ She hasn’t an inkling of it — how should she ?
I recognised that it was best not to tell her — and I
didn’t.”

On this, as Mrs. Knocker’s tears had also flowed,
Lady Greyswood kissed her. But she didn’t believe
her. Fanny herself, however, for the rest of the
season, proved inscrutable. “ She's a character ! ”
Lady Greyswood reflected with admiration. In
September, in Yorkshire, the girl was taken seriously
ill.

Ill

After luncheon at the Crisfords’ — the big Sunday
banquets of twenty people and a dozen courses —
the men, lingering a little in the dining-room,
dawdling among displaced chairs and dropped
napkins while the ladies rustled away, ended by
shuffling in casual pairs up to the studio, where
coffee was served and where, presently, before the
cigarettes were smoked out, Mrs. Crisford always
reappeared to usher in her contingent. The studio
was high and handsome, and luncheon at the Cris-
fords’ was, in the common esteem, more amusing
than almost anything else in London except dinner.
It was Bohemia with excellent service — Bohemia
not debtor but creditor. Upstairs the pictures,
finished or nearly finished, and arranged in a shining
row, gave an obviousness of topic, so that conversa-
tion could easily touch bottom. Maurice Glanvil,
who had never been in the house before, looked about
and wondered ; he was struck with the march of
civilization — the rise of the social tide. There were
new notes in English life, which he caught quickly
with his fresh sense ; during his long absence —
twenty years of France and Italy — all sorts of things
had happened. In his youth, in England, artists
and authors and actors — people of that general kind
— were not nearly so “ smart.” Maurice Glanvil
was forty-nine to-day, and he thought a great deal
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of his youth. He regretted it, he missed it, he tried
to beckon it back ; but the differences in London
made him feel that it had gone for ever. There might
perhaps be some sudden compensation in being fifty,
some turn of the dim telescope, some view from the
brow of the hill ; it was a round, gross, stupid number,
which probably would make one pompous, make one
think one’s self venerable. Meanwhile at any rate
it was odious to be forty-nine. Maurice observed
the young now more than he had ever done ; observed
them, that is, as the young. He wished he could have
had a son, to be twenty with again ; his daughter
was only eighteen, but fond as he was of her he
couldn't live instinctively into her girlishness. It
was not that there was not plenty of it, for she
was simple, sweet, indefinite, without the gifts
that the boy would have had, the gifts — what had
become of them now ? — that he himself used to
have.

The youngest person present, before the ladies
came in, was the young man who had sat next to
Vera and whom, being on the same side of the long
table, he had not had under his eye. Maurice noticed
him now, noticed that he was very good-looking,
fair and fresh and clean, impeccable in his straight
smoothness ; also that apparently knowing none of
the other guests and moving by himself about the
studio with visible interest in the charming things,
he had the modesty of his age and of his position.
He had, however, something more besides, which had
begun to prompt this observer to speak to him in
order to hear the sound of his voice — a strange
elusive resemblance, lost in the profile but flickering
straight out of the full face, to some one Maurice had
known. For a minute Glanvil was worried by it —
he had a sense that a name would suddenly come to
him if he should see the lips in motion ; but as he
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was on the point of laying the ghost by an experiment
Mrs. Crisford led in her companions. His daughter
was among them, and in company, as he was con-
stantly anxious about her appearance and her attitude,
she had at moments the faculty of drawing his atten-
tion from everything else. The poor child, the only
fruit of his odd, romantic union, the coup de foudre
of his youth, with her strangely beautiful mother,
whose own mother had been a Russian and who had
died in giving birth to her — his short, colourless,
insignificant Vera was excessively, incorrigibly plain.
She had been the disappointment of his life, but he
greatly pitied her. Her want of beauty, with her
antecedents, had been one of the strangest tricks of
fate ; she was acutely conscious of it and, being good
and docile, would have liked to please. She did
sometimes, to her father's delight, in spite of every-
thing ; she had been educated abroad, on foreign
lines, near her mother’s people. He had brought her
to England to take her out, to do what he could for
her ; but he was not unaware that in England her
manners, which had been thought very pretty on the
continent, would strike some persons as artificial.
They were exactly what her mother’s had been ;
they made up to a certain extent for the want of
other resemblance. An extreme solicitude at any
rate as to the impression she might make was the
source of his habit, in London, of watching her
covertly. He tried to see at a given moment how
she looked, if she were happy ; it was always with
an intention of encouragement, and there was a
frequent exchange between them of little invisible
affectionate signs. She wore charming clothes, but
she was terribly short ; in England the girls were
gigantic and it was only the tallest who were noticed.
Their manners, alas, had nothing to do with it —
many of them indeed hadn't any manners. As soon
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as he had got near Vera he said to her, scanning her
through his single glass from head to foot :

“ Who is the young man who sat next you ? the
one at the other end of the room.”

" I don’t know his name, papa — I didn't catch it."
“ Was he civil — did he talk to you ? "

" Oh, a great deal, papa — about all sorts of things."
Something in the tone of her voice made him
look with greater intensity and even with greater
tenderness than usual into her little dim green eyes.
" Then you’re all right — you're getting on ? "

She gave her effusive smile — the one that perhaps
wouldn't do in England. " Oh, beautifully, papa —
every one’s so kind."

She never complained, was a brave little optimist,
full of sweet resources ; but he had detected to-day
as soon els he looked at her the particular shade of
her content. It made him continue, after an hesita-
tion : "He didn’t say anything about his relations —
anything that could give you a clue ? "

Vera thought a moment. "Not that I can
remember — unless that Mr. Crisford is painting the
portrait of his mother. Ah, there it is ! " the girl
exclaimed, looking across the room at a large picture
on an easel, which the young man had just approached
and from which their host had just removed the
drapery that covered it. Maurice Glanvil had
observed this drapery, and as the artist unveiled the
canvas with a flourish he saw that he had been
waiting for the ladies to show it, to produce a sur-
prise, a grand effect. Every one moved toward it,
and Maurice, with his daughter beside him, recog-
nised that the production, a portrait, was striking, a
great success for Crisford — the figure, down to the
knees, with an extraordinary look of life, of a tall,
handsome woman of middle age, in full dress, in
black. Yet he saw it for the moment vaguely,
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through a preoccupation, that of a discovery which
he had just made and which had recalled to him an
incident of his youth — his juxtaposition, in London,
at a dinner, to a girl, insurmountably charmless to
him, who had fallen in love with him (so that she
was nearly to die of it) within the first five minutes,
before he had even spoken ; as he had subsequently
learned from a communication made him by his poor
mother — a reminder uttered with a pointless bitter-
ness that he had failed to understand and accom-
panied with unsuspected details, much later — too
late, long after his marriage and shortly before her
death. He said to himself that he must look out,
and he wondered if poor Vera would also be insur-
mountably charmless to the good-looking young man.
“ But what a likeness, papa — what a likeness ! ” he
heard her murmur at his elbow with suppressed
excitement.

“ How can you tell, my dear, if you haven't seen
her ? "

" I mean to the gentleman — the son.”

Every one was exclaiming “ How wonderfully
clever — how beautiful ! ” and under cover of the
agitation and applause Maurice Glanvil had drawn
nearer the picture. The movement had brought
him close to the young man of whom he had been
talking with Vera and who, with his happy eyes on
the painted figure, seemed to smile in acknowledg-
ment of the artist’s talent and of the sitter’s
charm.

" Do you know who the lady is ? ” Maurice said
to him.

He turned his bright face to his interlocutor.
” She’s my mother — Mrs. Tregent. Isn’t it won-
derful ? ”

His eyes, his lips, his voice flashed a light into
Glanvil's uncertainty — the tormenting resemblance
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was simply a prolonged echo of Fanny Knocker, in
whose later name, precisely, he recognised the name
pronounced by the young man. Maurice Glanvil
stared in some bewilderment ; this stately, splendid
lady, with a face so vivid that it was handsome, was
what that unfortunate girl had become ? The eyes,
as if they had picked him out, looked at him strangely
from the canvas ; the face, with all its difference,
asserted itself, and he felt himself turning as red
as if he had been in the presence of the original.
Young Tregent, pleased and proud, had given way
to the pressing spectators, placing himself at Vera’s
other side ; and Maurice heard the girl exclaim to
him in one of her pretty effusions : “ How beautiful
she must be, and how amiable ! ”

“ She is indeed — it's not a bit flattered.” And
while Maurice still stared, more and more mystified
— for “ flattered, flattered ! ” was the unspoken
solution in which he had instantly taken refuge — his
neighbour continued : "I wish you could know her
— you must ; she’s delightful. She couldn’t come
here to-day — they asked her : she has people lunch-
ing at home.”

“ I should be so glad ; perhaps we may meet her
somewhere,” said Vera.

*' If 1 ask her and if you’ll let her I’m sure she’ll
come to see you,” the young man responded. Maurice
had glanced at him while the face of the portrait
watched them with the oddest, the grimmest effect.
He was filled with a confusion of feelings, asking
himself half-a-dozen questions at once. Was young
Tregent, with his attentive manner, ” making up ”
to Vera ? was he going out of his way in answering
for his mother’s civility ? Little did he know what
he was taking on himself ! Above all was Fanny
Knocker to-day this extraordinary figure — extra-
ordinary in the light of the early plainness that had

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made him bolt ? He became conscious of an extreme
curiosity, an irresistible desire to see her.

“ Oh, papa/’ said Vera, “ Mr. Tregent’s so kind ;
he’s so good as to promise us a visit from his mother.”

The young man’s friendly eyes were still on the
child's face. “I’ll tell her all about you. Oh, if I
ask her she’ll come ! ” he repeated.

“ Does she do everything you ask her ? ” the girl
inquired.

“ She likes to know my friends ! ”

Maurice hesitated, wondering if he were in the
presence of a smooth young humbug to whom com-
pliments cost nothing, or in that of an impression
really made — made by his little fluttered, unpopular
Vera. He had a horror of exposing his child to risks,
but his curiosity was greater than his caution. “ Your
mother mustn’t come to us — it’s our duty to go to
her,” he said to Mr. Tregent ; “ I had the honour of
knowing her — a long time ago. Her mother and
mine were intimate friends. Be so good as to mention
my name to her, that of Maurice Glanvil, and to toll
her how glad I have been to make your acquaintance.
And now, my dear child,” he added to Vera, “ we
must take leave.”

During the rest of that day it never occurred to
him that there might be an awkwardness in his
presenting himself, even after many years, before a
person with whom he had broken as he had broken
with Fanny Knocker. This was partly because he
held, justly enough, that he had never committed
himself, and partly because the intensity of his desire
to measure with his own eyes the change represented
— misrepresented perhaps — by the picture was a force
greater than any embarrassment. His mother had
told him that the poor girl had cruelly suffered, but
there was no present intensity in that idea. With
her expensive portrait, her grand air, her handsome
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son, she somehow embodied success, whereas he him-
self, standing for mere bereavement and disappoint-
ment, was a failure not to be surpassed. With Vera
that evening he was very silent ; she saw him smoke
endless cigarettes and wondered what he was thinking
of. She guessed indeed, but she was too subtle a
little person to attempt to fall in with his thoughts or
to be willing to betray her own by asking him random
questions about Mrs. Tregent. She had expressed as
they came away from their luncheon-party a natural
surprise at the coincidence of his having known the
mother of her amusing neighbour, but the only other
words that dropped from her on the subject were
contained in a question that, before she went to bed,
she put to him with abrupt gaiety, while she carefully
placed a marker in a book she had not been reading.
“ When is it then that we’re to call upon this wonder-
ful old friend ? "

He looked at her through the smoke of his cigarette.
“ I don’t know. We must wait a little, to allow her
time to give some sign."

“ Oh, 1 see ! ” And Vera took leave of him with
one of her sincere little kisses.

127

IV

He had not long to wait for the sign from Mrs.
Tregcnt ; it arrived the very next morning in the
shape of an invitation to dinner. This invitation
was immediately accepted, but a fortnight was still
to intervene — a trial to Maurice Glanvil’s patience.
The promptitude of the demonstration gave him
pleasure — it showed him no bitterness had survived.
What place was there indeed for resentment, since
she had married and given birth to children and
thought so well of the face God had conferred on
her as to wish to hand it on to her posterity ? Her
husband was in Parliament, or had been — that came
back to him from his mother's story. He caught
himself reverting to her with a frequency that sur-
prised him ; he was haunted by the image of that
bright, strong woman on Crisford's canvas, in whom
there was just enough of Fanny Knocker to put a
sort of defiance into the difference. He wanted to
see it again, and his opportunity was at hand m the
form of a visit to Mrs. Crisford. He called on this
lady, without his daughter, four days after he had
lunched with her, and, finding her at home, he pre-
sently led the conversation to the portrait and to
his ardent desire for another glimpse of it. Mrs.
Crisford gratified this eagerness — perhaps he struck
her as a possible sitter ; it was late in the afternoon
and her husband was out : she led him into the
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studio. Mrs. Tregent, splendid and serene, stood
there as if she had been watching for him. There
was no doubt the picture was a masterpiece. Maurice
had mentioned that he had known the original years
before and then had lost sight of her. He questioned
his hostess with artful detachment.

" What sort of a person has she become — agree-
able, popular ? "

" Every one adores her — she’s so clever.”

“ Really — remarkably ? ”

“ Extraordinarily — one of the cleverest women
I’ve ever known, and quite one of the most charming.”

Maurice looked at the portrait — at the super-
subtle smile which seemed to tell him Mrs. Tregent
knew they were talking about her ; a kind of smile
he had never expected to live to see in Fanny
Knocker's eyes. Then he asked : “ Has she literally
become as handsome as that ? ”

Mrs. Crisford hesitated. ” She’s beautiful.”

“ Beautiful ? ” Maurice echoed.

“ What shall I say ? It’s a peculiar charm ! It’s
her spirit. One sees that her life has been beautiful
in spite of her sorrows ! ” Mrs. Crisford added.

“ What sorrows has she had ? ” Maurice coloured
a little as soon as he had spoken.

“ Oh, lots of deaths. She has lost her husband ;
she has lost several children.”

"Ah, that’s new to me. Was her marriage
happy ? ”

“ It must have been for Mr. Tregent. If it wasn't
for her, no one ever knew.”

“ But she has a son,” said Maurice.

“Yes, the only one — such a dear. She thinks all
the world of him.”

At this moment a message was brought to Mrs.
Crisford, and she asked to be excused while she went
to say a word to some one who was waiting. Maurice
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Glanvil in this way was left alone for five minutes
with the intensity of the presence evoked by the
artist. He found himself agitated, excited by it :
the face of the portrait was so intelligent and conscious
that as he stood there he felt as if some strange com-
munication had taken place between his being and
Mrs. Tregent’s. The idea made him nervous : he
moved about the room and ended by turning his
back. Mrs. Crisford reappeared, but he soon took
leave of her ; and when he had got home (he had
settled himself in South Kensington, in a little un-
discriminated house which he had hated from the
first), he learned from his daughter that she had had
a visit from young Tregcnt. He had asked first for
Mr. Glanvil and then, in the second instance, for
herself, telling her when admitted, as if to attenuate
his possible indiscretion, that his mother had charged
him to try to see her even if he should not find her
father. Vera had never before received a gentleman
alone, and the incident had left traces of emotion.
“ Poor little thing ! ” Maurice said to himself : he
always took a melancholy view of any happiness of
his daughter's, tending to believe, in his pessimism,
that it could only lead to some refinement of humilia-
tion. He encouraged her, however, to talk about
young Trcgent, who, according to her account, had
been extravagantly amusing. He had said, moreover,
that his mother was tremendously impatient to renew
such an old acquaintance. “ Why in the world
doesn’t she, then ? ” Maurice asked himself ; ‘ why
doesn't she come and sec Vera ? ” He reflected
afterwards that such an expectation was unreasonable,
but it represented at the moment a kind of rebellion
of his conscience. Then, as he had begun to be a
little ashamed of his curiosity, he liked to think that
Mrs. Tregent would have quite as much. On the
morrow he knocked at her door — she lived in a
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" commodious ” house in Manchester Square — and
had the satisfaction, as he had chosen his time care-
fully, of learning that she had just come in.

Upstairs, in a high, quiet, old-fashioned drawing-
room, she was before him. What he saw was a tall
woman in black, in her bonnet, with a white face,
smiling intensely — smiling and smiling before she
spoke. He quickly perceived that she was agitated
and was making an heroic effort, which would
presently be successful, not to show it. But it was
above all clear to him that she wasn’t Fanny Knocker
— was simply another person altogether. She had
nothing in common with Fanny Knocker — it was
impossible to meet her on the ground of any former
acquaintance. What acquaintance had he ever had
with this graceful, harmonious, expressive English
matron, whose smile had a singular radiance ? That
rascal of a Crisford had done her such perfect justice
that he felt as if he had before him the portrait of
which the image in the studio had been the original.
There were nevertheless things to be said, and they
said them on cither side, sinking together, with
friendly exclamations and exaggerated laughs, on
the sofa, where her nearness seemed the span of all
the distance that separated her from the past. The
phrase that hummed through everything, to his sense,
was his own inarticulate “ How could I have known ?
how could I have known ? ” How could he have
foreseen that time and life and happiness (it was
probably more than anything happiness) would trans-
pose her into such a different key ? Her whole
personality revealed itself from moment to moment
as something so agreeable that even after all these
years he felt himself blushing for the crass stupidity
of his mistake. Yes, he was turning red, and she
could see it and would know why : a perception that
could only constitute for her a magnificent triumph,
1 3i

THE WHEEL OF TIME

a revenge. All his natural and acquired coolness, his
experience of life, his habit of society, everything
that contributed to make him a man of the world,
were of no avail to cover his confusion. He took
refuge from it almost angrily in trying to prove to
himself that she had on a second look a likeness to
the ugly girl he had not thought good enough — in
trying to trace Fanny Knocker in her fair, ripe bloom,
the fine irregularity of her features. To put his finger
on the identity would make him feel better. Some
of the facts of the girl’s crooked face were still there —
conventional beauty was absent ; but the proportions
and relations had changed, and the expression and
the spirit : she had accepted herself or ceased to care
— had found oblivion and activity and appreciation.
What Maurice mainly discovered, however, in this
intenser observation was an attitude of hospitality
toward himself which immediately effaced the pre-
sumption of “ triumph.” Vulgar vanity was far
from her, and the grossness of watching her effect
upon him : she was watching only the lost vision
that had come back, the joy that, if for a single hour,
she had found again. She herself had no measure
of the alteration that struck him, and there was no
substitution for her in the face that her deep eyes
seemed to brush with their hovering. Presently they
were talking like old friends, and before long each
was in possession of the principal facts concerning
the other. Many things had come and gone and the
common fate had pressed them hard. Her parents
were dead, and her husband and her first-born
children. He, on his side, had lost his mother and
his wife. They matched bereavements and compared
bruises, and in the way she expressed herself there
was a charm which forced him, as he wondered, to
remember that Fanny Knocker had at least been
intelligent.

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“ I wish I could have seen your wife — you must
tell me all about her," she said. “ Haven’t you
some portraits ? ”

" Some poor little photographs. I’ll show them
to you. She was very pretty and very gentle ; she
was also very un-English. But she only lived a year.
She wasn’t clever and accomplished — like you."

" Ah, me ; you don’t know me ! "

"No, but I want to — oh particularly. I’m pre-
pared to give a good deal of time to the study."

" We must be friends," said Mrs. Tregent. " I
shall take an extraordinary interest in your
daughter."

" She’ll be grateful for it. She’s a good little
reasonable thing, without a scrap of beauty."

" You care greatly for that," said Mrs. Tregent.

He hesitated a moment. " Don’t you ? ’’

She smiled at him with her basking candour.
" I used to. That’s my husband," she added, with
an odd, though evidently accidental, inconsequence.
She had reached out to a table for a photograph in
a silver frame. “ He was very good to me."

Maurice saw that Mr. Tregent had been many
years older than his wife — a prosperous, prosaic,
parliamentary person whom she couldn’t impose on a
man of the world. He sat an hour, and they talked
of the mutilated season of their youth : he wondered
at the things she remembered. In this little hour
he felt his situation change — something strange and
important take place : he seemed to sec why he had
come back to England. But there was an implication
that worried him — it was in the very air, a reverbera-
tion of that old assurance of his mother's. He wished
to clear the question up — it would matter for the
beginning of a new friendship. Had she had any
sense of injury when he took to his heels, any glimpse
of the understanding on which he had begun to
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THE WHEEL OF TIME

come to Ennismorc Gardens ? He couldn't find out
to-day except by asking her, which, at their time
of life, after so many years and consolations, would
be legitimate and even amusing. When he took
leave of her he held her hand a moment, hesitating ;
then he brought out :

" Did they ever tell you — a hundred years ago —
that between your mother and mine there was a
great question of our marrying ? ”

She stared — she broke into a laugh. " Was
there ? ”

“ Did you ever know it ? Did you ever suspect
it ? ”

She hesitated and, for the first time since he had
been in the room, ceased for an instant to look
straight at him. She only answered, still laughing
however : “ Poor dears — they were altogether too
deep ! ”

She evidently wished to convey that she had
never known. Maurice was a little disappointed :
at present he would have preferred her knowledge.
But as he walked home across the park, through
Kensington Gardens, he felt it impossible to believe
in her ignorance.

* 34

V

At the end of a month he broke out to her. “ I
can’t get over it, it’s so extraordinary — the difference
between your youth and your maturity ! ”

“ Did you expect me to be an eternal child ? ”
Mrs. Tregent asked composedly.

“ No, it isn’t that.” He stopped — it would be
difficult to explain.

“ What is it then ? ” she inquired, with her
systematic refusal to acknowledge a complication.
There was always, to Maurice Glanvil’s ear, in her
impenetrability to allusion, the faintest, softest glee,
and it gave her on this occasion the appearance of
recognising his difficulty and being amused at it.
She would be excusable to be a little cold-blooded.
He really knew, however, that the penalty was all in
his own reflexions, for it had not taken him even a
month to perceive that she was supremely, almost
strangely indulgent. There was nothing he was ready
to say that she might not hear, and her absence of
coquetry was a remarkable rest to him.

" It isn’t what I expected — it's what I didn’t
expect. To say exactly what I mean, it’s the way
you've improved.”

" I've improved ? I’m so glad ! ”

“ Surely you’ve been aware of it — you’ve been
conscious of the transformation.”

“ As an improvement ? I don’t know. I’ve been

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conscious of changes enough — of all the stages and
strains and lessons of life. I’ve been aware of growing
old, and I hold, in dissent from the usual belief, that
there's no fool like a young fool. One is never, I
suppose, such a fool as one has been, and that may
count perhaps as amelioration. But I can’t flatter
myself that I’ve had two different identities. I’ve
had to make one, such as it is, do for everything.
I think I’ve been happier than I originally supposed
I should be — and yet I had my happiness too as a
girl. At all events if you were to scratch me, as they

say, you’d still find ” She paused a moment,

and he really hung upon her lips : there was such
a charm of tone in whatever she said. “ You’d still
find, underneath, the blowsy girl — — ” With this
she again checked herself and, sligh+ly to his surprise,
gave a nervous laugh.

“ The blowsy girl ? ” he repeated, with an artless-
ness of interrogation that made her laugh again.

“ Whom you went with that hot day to see the
princess give the prizes.”

“ Oh yes — that dreadful day ! ” he answered
gravely, musingly, with the whole scene pictured
by her words and without contesting the manner
in which she qualified herself. It was the nearest
allusion that had passed between them to that crudest
conception of his boyhood, his flight from Ennismore
Gardens. Almost every day for a month he had
come to see her, and they had talked of a thousand
things ; never yet, however, had they made any
explicit mention of this remote instance of premature
wisdom. Moreover, if he now felt the need of going
back it was not to be apologetic, to do penance ;
he had nothing to explain, for his behaviour, as he
considered it, still struck him, given the circumstances,
as natural. It was to himself indeed that explanations
were owing, for he had been the one who had been
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most deceived. He liked Mrs. Tregent better than
he had ever liked a woman — that is he liked her for
more reasons. He had liked his poor little wife only
for one, which was after all no reason at all : he had
been in love with her. In spite of the charm that
the renewal of acquaintance with his old friend had
so unexpectedly added to his life there was a vague
torment in his relation with her, the sense of a revenge
(oh a very kind one !) to take, a haunting idea that he
couldn’t pacify. He could still feel sore at the trick
that had been played him. Even after a month the
curiosity with which he had approached her was not
assuaged ; in a manner indeed it had only borrowed
force from all she had insisted on doing for him.
She was literally doing everything now ; gently,
gaily, with a touch so familiar that protestations on
his part would have been pedantic, she had taken
his life in hand. Rich as she was she had known
how to give him lessons in economy ; she had taught
him how to manage in London on his means. A
month ago his servants had been horrid — to-day they
were the best he had ever known. For Vera she was
plainly a providence — her behaviour to Vera was
transcendent.

He had privately made up his mind that Vera had
in truth had her coup de Joudrc — that if she had had
a chance she would have laid' down her little life for
Arthur Tregent ; yet two circumstances, he could
perceive, had helped to postpone, to attenuate even
somewhat, her full consciousness of what had befallen
her. One of these influences had been the prompt
departure of the young man from London ; the other
was simply the diversion produced by Mrs. Tregent ’s
encompassing art. It had had immediate con-
sequences for the child : it was like a drama in
perpetual climaxes. This surprising benefactress re-
joiced in her society, took her “ out,” treated her as
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THE WHEEL OF TIME

if there were mysterious injustices to repair. Vera
was agitated not a little by such a change in her life ;
she had English kindred enough, uncles and aunts
and cousins ; but she had felt herself lost in her
father's family and was principally aware*; ttunong
them, of their strangeness and their indifference.
They affected her mainly as mere number and stature.
Mrs. Tregent’s was a performance unpromised and
uninterrupted, and the girl desired to know if all
English people took so generous a view of friendship.
Maurice laughed at this question and, without meeting
his daughter’s eyes, answered in the negative. Vera
guessed so many things that he didn’t know what
she would be guessing next. He saw her caught up
to the blue like Ganymede, and surrendered her con-
tentedly. She had been the occupation of his life,
yet to Mrs. Tregent he was willing to part with her ;
this lady was the only person of whom he would not
have been jealous. Even in the young man’s absence,
moreover, Vera lived with the son of the house and
breathed his air ; Manchester Square was full of him,
his photograph was on every table. How often she
spoke of him to his mother Maurice had no means
of knowing, nor whether Mrs. Tregent encouraged
such a topic ; he had reason to believe indeed that
there were reserves on either side, and he felt that
he could trust his old friend's prudence as much as
her liberality. The attitude of forbearance from rash
allusions, which was Maurice's own, could not at any
rate keep Arthur from being a presence in the little
drama which had begun for them all, as the older
man was more and more to recognise with nervous
prefigurements, on that occasion at the Crisfords'.

Arthur Tregent had gone to Ireland to spend a
few weeks with an old university friend — the gentle-
man indeed, at Cambridge, had been his tutor — who
had lately, in a district classified as " disturbed,"
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THE WHEEL OF TIME

come into a bewildering heritage. He had chosen
in short for a study of the agrarian question on the
spot the moment of the year when London was
most absorbing. Maurice Glanvil made no remark
to his mother on this anomaly, and she offered him
no explanation of it ; they talked in fact of almost
everything except Arthur. Mrs. Tregent had to
her constant visitor the air of feeling that she owed
him in relation to her son an apology which she
had not the materials for making. It was certainly
a high standard of courtesy that would suggest to
her that he ought to have put himself out for these
social specimens ; but it was obvious that her
standard was high. Maurice Glanvil smiled when he
thought to what bare civility the young man would
have deemed himself held had he known of a certain
passage of private history. But he knew nothing- -
Maurice was sure of that ; his reason for going away
had been quite another matter. That Vera's brooding
parent should have had such an insight into the young
man’s motives is a proof of the amount of reflexion
that he devoted to him. He had not seen much of
him anti in truth he found him provoking, but he
was haunted by the odd analogy of which he had
had a glimpse on their first encounter. The late Mr.
Tregent had had “ interests in the north," and the
care of them had naturally devolved upon his son,
who by the mother’s account had shown an admirable
capacity for business. The late Mr. Tregent had
also been actively political, and it was fondly hoped,
in Manchester Square at least, that the day was
not distant when his heir would, in turn and as a
representative of the same respectabilities, speak
reported words in debate. Maurice himself, vague
about the House of Commons, had nothing to say
against his making a figure there. Accordingly if
these natural gifts continued to remind him of his
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THE WHEEL OF TIME

own fastidiously clever youth, it was with the differ-
ence that Arthur Tregent ’s cleverness struck him
as much the greater of the two. If the changes in
England were marked this indeed was in general
one of them, that the sharp young men were still
sharper than of yore. When they had ability at
any rate they showed it all ; Maurice would never
have pretended that he had shown all his. He had
not cared whether any one knew it. It was not,
however, this superior intensity which provoked him,
and poor young Tregent could not be held responsible
for his irritation. If the circumstance in which they
most resembled each other was the disposition to
escape from plain girls who aspired to them, such
a characteristic, as embodied in the object of Vera’s
admiration, was purely interesting, was even amusing,
to Vera’s father ; but it would have gratified him
to be able to ascertain from Mrs. Tregent whether,
to her knowledge, her son thought his child really
repulsive, and what annoyed him was the fact that
such an inquiry was practically impossible. Arthur
was provoking in short because he had an advantage
— an advantage residing in the fact that his mother’s
friend couldn't ask questions about him without
appearing to indulge in hints and overtures. The
j<lca of this officiousness was odious to Maurice Glanvil;
so that he confined himself to meditating in silence
on the happiness it would be for poor Vera to marry
a beautiful young man with a fortune and a futnre.

Though the opportunity for this recreation — it
engaged much of his time — should be counted as
one of the pleasant results of his intimacy with Mrs.
Tregent, yet the sense, perverse enough, that he had
a ground of complaint against her subsisted even to
the point of finally steadying him while he expressed
his grievance. This happened in the course of one
of those afternoon hours that had now become
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indispensable to him — hours of belated tea and
egotistical talk in the long summer light and the
chastened roar of London.

“ No, it wasn't fair," he said, " and I wasn't well
used — a hundred years ago. I’m sore about it now ;
you ought to have notified me, to have instructed me.
Why didn't you, in common honesty ? Why didn't
my poor mother, who was so eager and shrewd ?
Why didn’t yours ? She used to talk to me. Heaven
forgive me for saying it, but our mothers weren’t up
to the mark ! You may tell me they didn’t know ;
to which I reply that mine was universally supposed,
and by me in particular, to know everything that
could be known. No, it wasn’t well managed, and
the consequence has been this odious discovery, an
awful shock to a man of my time of life and under
the effect of which I now speak to you, that for a
quarter of a century I’ve been a fool."

" What would you have wished us to do ? ’’ Mrs.
Tregent asked as she gave him another cup of tea.

“ Why, to have said ' Wait, wait — at any price ;
have patience and hold on ! ’ They ought to have
told me, you ought to have told me, that your con-
ditions at that time were a temporary phase and that
you would infallibly break your shell. You ought
to have warned me, they ought to have warned m$,
that there would be wizardry in the case, that you
were to be the subject, at a given moment, of a trans-
formation absolutely miraculous. I couldn’t know
it by inspiration ; I measured you by the common
law — how could I do anything else ? But it wasn’t
kind to leave me in error."

Maurice Glanvil treated himself without scruple
to this fine ironic flight, this sophistry which eased
his nerves, because though it brought him nearer
than he had yet come to putting his finger, visibly
to Mrs. Tregent, on the fact that he had once tried
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THE WHEEL OF TIME

to believe he could marry her and had found her too
ugly, their present relation was so extraordinary and
his present appreciation so liberal as to make almost
any freedom excusable, especially as his companion
had the advantage of being to all intents and purposes
a different person from the one he talked of, while
he suffered the ignominy of being the same.

“ There has been no miracle/’ said Mrs. Tregent
after a moment. “ I’ve never known anything but
the common, ah the very common, law, and anything
that I may have become only the common things
have made me.”

He shook his head. ‘‘You wore a disfiguring
mask, a veil, a disguise. One fine day you dropped
them all and showed the world the real creature.”

“ It wasn’t one fine day — it was little by little.”

" Well, one fine day I saw the result ; the process
doesn’t matter. To arrive at a goal invisible from
the starting-point is no doubt an incident in the
life of a certain number of women. But what is
absolutely unprecedented is to have traversed such a
distance.”

“ Hadn’t I a single redeeming point ? ” Mrs.
Tregent demanded.

He hesitated a little, and while he hesitated she
looked at him. Her look was but of an instant,
but it told him everything, told him, in one misty
moonbeam, all she had known of old. She had
known perfectly — she had been as conscious of the
conditions of his experiment as of the invincibility of
his repugnance. Whether her mother had betrayed
him didn’t matter ; she had read everything clear
and had had to accept the cruel truth. He was
touched as he had never been by that moment’s
communication ; he was, unexpectedly, almost awe-
struck, for there was something still more in it than
he had guessed. “ I was letting my fancy play just
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now,” he answered, apologetically. “ It was I who
was wanting — it was I who was the idiot ! ”

" Don't say that. You were so kind.” And here-
upon Mrs. Tregent startled her visitor by bursting
into tears.

She recovered herself indeed, and they forbore on
that occasion, in the interest of the decorum expected
of persons of their age and in their circumstances,
to rake over these smouldering ashes ; but such a
conversation had made a difference, and from that
day onward Maurice Glanvil was awake to the fact
that he had been the passion of this extraordinary
woman’s life. He felt humiliated for an hour, but
after that his pleasure was almost as great as his
wonder. For wonder there was plenty of room, but
little by little he saw how things had come to pass.
She was not subjected to the ordeal of telling him
or to the abasement of any confession, but day by
day he sounded, with a purity of gratitude that
renewed, in his spirit, the sources of youth, the
depths of everything that her behaviour implied.
Of such a studied tenderness as she showed him the
roots could only be in some unspeakably sacred
past. She had not to explain, she had not to clear
up inconsistencies, she had only to let him be with
her. She had striven, she had accepted, she had
conformed, but she had thought of him every day
of her life. She had taken up duties and performed
them, she had banished every weakness and practised
every virtue, but the still, hidden flame had never
been quenched. His image had interposed, his reality
had remained, and she had never denied herself the
sweetness of hoping that she should see him again
and that she should know him. She had never raised
a little finger for it, but fortune had answered her
prayer. Women were capable of these mysteries of
sentiment, these intensities of fidelity, and there were
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moments in which Maurice Glanvil’s heart beat
strangely before a vision really so sublime. He
seemed to understand now by what miracle Fanny
Knocker had been beautified — the miracle of heroic
docilities and accepted pangs and vanquished egotisms.
It had never come in a night, but it had come by
living for others. She was living for others still ;
it was impossible for him to see anything else at last
than that she was living for him. The time of passion
was over, but the time of service was long. When
all this became vivid to him he felt that he couldn’t
recognise it enough and yet that recognition might
only be tacit and, as it were, circuitous. He couldn’t
say to her even humorously “It’s very kind of you
to be in love with such a donkey,” for these words
would have implied somehow that he had rights —
an attitude from which his renovated delicacy shrank.
He bowed his head before such charity and seemed
to see, moreover, that Mrs. Tregent's desire to befriend
him was a feeling independent of any prospect of
gain and indifferent to any chance of reward. It
would be described vulgarly, after so much had come
and gone, as the state of being “ in love ” — the state
of the instinctive and the simple, which they both
had left far behind ; so that there was a certain sort
of reciprocity which would almost constitute an insult
to it.

144

VI

He soared on these high thoughts till, toward the
end of July (Mrs. Tregent stayed late in town — she
was awaiting her son’s return) he made the discovery
that to some persons, perhaps indeed to many, he had
all the air of being in love. This image was flashed
back to him from the irreverent lips of a lady who
knew and admired Mrs. Tregent and who professed
amusement at his surprise, at his artless declaration
that he had no idea he had made himself conspicuous.
She assured him that every one was talking about him
— though people after all had a tenderness for elderly
romance ; and she left him divided between the acute
sense that he was comical (he had a horror of that) and
the pale perception of something that he could “ help ”
still less. At the end of a few hours of reflexion he
had sacrificed the penalty to the privilege ; he was
about to be fifty, and he knew Fanny Knocker's
age — no one better ; but he cared no straw for vulgar
judgements and moreover could think of plenty of
examples of unions admired even after longer delays.
For three days he enjoyed the luxury of admitting to
himself without reserve how indispensable she had
become to him ; as the third drew to a close he was
more nervous than really he had ever been in his life,
for this was the evening on which, after many hin-
drances, Mrs. Tregent had agreed to dine with him.
He had planned the occasion for a month — he wanted
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THE WHEEL OF TIME

to show her how well he had learned from her how
to live on his income. Her occupations had always
interposed — she was teaching him new lessons ; but
at last she gave him the joy of sitting at his table. At
the evening’s end he begged her to remain after the
others, and he asked one of the ladies who had been
present, and who was going to a pair of parties, to be
so good as to take Vera away. This indeed had been
arranged in advance, and when, in the discomposed
drawing-room, of which the windows stood open to
the summer night, he was alone with his old friend, he
saw in her face that she knew it had been arranged.
He saw more than this — that she knew what he was
waiting to say and that if, after a visible reluctance,
she had consented to come, it was in order to meet him,
with whatever effort, on the ground he had chosen —
meet him once and then leave it for ever. This was
why, without interrupting him, but before he had
finished, putting out her hand to his own, with a
strange clasp of refusal, she was ready to show him,
in a woeful but beautiful hcadshake to which nothing
could add, that it was impossible at this time of day
for them to marry. She stayed only a moment, but
in that moment he had to accept the knowledge that
by as much as it might have been of old, by so much
might it never be again. After she had gone he
walked up and down the drawing-room half the night.
He sent the servants to bed, he blew out the candles ;
the forsaken place was lighted only by the lamps in
the street. He gave himself the motive of waiting
for Vera to come back, but in reality he threshed
about in the darkness because his cheeks had begun
to burn. There was a sting for him in Mrs. Tregent's
refusal, and this sting was sharper even than the dis-
appointment of his desire. It was a reproach to his
delicacy ; it made him feel as if he had been an ass for
the second time. When she was young and free his
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THE WHEEL OF TIME

faith had been too poor and his perceptions too dense ;
he had waited to show her that he only bargained for
certainties and only recognised success. He dropped
into a chair at last and sat there a long time, his elbows
on his knees, his face in his hands, trying to cover
up his humiliation, waiting for it to ebb. As the
sounds of the night died away it began to come back
to him that she had given him a promise to which a
rich meaning could be attached. What was it that
before going away she had said about Vera, in words
he had been at the moment too disconcerted to take
in ? Little by little he reconstructed these words with
comfort ; finally, when after hearing a carriage stop
at the door he hastily pulled himself together and went
down to admit his daughter, the sight of the child on
his threshold, as the brougham that had restored her
drove away, brought them all back in their generosity.

" Have you danced ? ” he asked.

She hesitated. “ A little, papa.”

He knew what that meant — she had danced once.
He followed her upstairs in silence ; she had not
wasted her time — she had had her humiliation. All,
clearly she was too short ! Yet on the landing above,
where her bedroom candle stood, she tried to be gay
with him, asking him about his own party and whether
the people had stayed late.

“ Mrs. Tregent stayed after the others. She spoke
very kindly of you.”

The girl looked at her father with an anxiety that
showed through her smile. ” What did she say ? ”

He hesitated, as Vera had done a moment before.
“ That you must be our compensation.”

His daughter’s eyes, still wondering, turned away.
" What did she mean ? ”

“ That it’s all right, darling ! ” And he supplied
the deficiencies of this explanation with a long kiss for
good-night.

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The next day he went to see Mrs. Tregent, who wore
the air of being glad to have something at once
positive and pleasant to say. She announced im-
mediately that Arthur was coming back.

“ I congratulate you.” Then, as they exchanged
one of their looks of unreserved recognition, Maurice
added : " Now it’s for Vera and me to go.”

" To go ? ”

“ Without more delay. It’s high time we should
take ourselves off.”

Mrs. Tregent was silent a moment. " Where shall
you go ? ”

“ To our old haunts, abroad. We must see some
of our old friends. We shall spend six months away.”

“ Then what becomes of my months ? "

“ Your months ? ”

“ Those it’s all arranged she's to spend at Blank-
ley.” Blankley was Mrs. Tregent's house in Derby-
shire, and she laughed as she went on : ” Those that
I spoke of last evening. Don't look as if we had never
discussed it and settled it ! ”

“ What shall I do without her*? ” Maurice Glanvil
presently demanded.

“ What will you do with her ? ” his hostess replied,
with a world of triumphant meaning. He was not
prepared to say, in the sense of her question, and he
took refuge in remarking that he noted her avoidance
of any suggestion that he too would be welcome in
Derbyshire ; which led her to continue, with unshrink-
ing frankness : “ Certainly, I don’t want you a bit.
Leave us alone.”

" Is it safe ? ”

” Of course I can’t absolutely answer for anything,
but at least it will be safer than with you,” said Mrs.
Tregent.

Maurice Glanvil turned this over. ” Does he
dislike me? ”

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THE WHEEL OF TIME

“ What an idea ! ”

But the question had brought the colour to her
face, and the sight of this, with her evasive answer,
kindled in Maurice's heart a sudden relief, a delight
almost, that was strange enough. Arthur was in
opposition, plainly, and that was why he had so
promptly quitted London, that was why Mrs. Tregent
had refused Mr. Glanvil. The idea was an instant
balm. “ He’d be quite right, poor fellow ! ” Maurice
declared. “ I’ll go abroad alone.”

“ Let me keep her six months,” said Mrs. Tregent.
“ I’ll try it— I’ll try it ! ”

“ I wouldn’t interfere for the world.”

” It's an immense responsibility ; but I should
like so to succeed.”

“ She's an angel ! ” Maurice said.

" That’s what gives me courage.”

“ But she mustn’t dream of any plot,” he added.

“For what do you take me ? ” Mrs. Tregent ex-
claimed with a smile which lightened up for him
intensely that far-away troubled past as to which
she had originally baffled his inquiry.

The joy of perceiving in an aversion to himself a
possible motive for Arthur’s absence was so great in
him that before he took leave of her he ventured to
say to his old friend : “ Does he like her at all ? ”

" He likes her very much.”

Maurice remembered how much he had liked Fanny
Knocker and been willing to admit it to his mother ;
but he presently observed : “Of course he can’t
think her in the least pretty.”

" As you say, she's an angel,” Mrs. Tregent
rejoined.

" She would pass for one better if she were a few
inches taller.”

” It doesn’t matter,” said Mrs. Tregent. *

“ One must remember that in that respect, at her
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THE WHEEL OF TIME

age, she won’t change,” Maurice pursued, wondering
after he had spoken whether he had pressed upon the
second pronoun.

" No, she won’t change. But she’s a darling ! ”
Mrs. Tregent exclaimed ; and it was in these meagre
words, which were only half, however, of what passed
between them, that an extraordinary offer was made
and accepted. They were so ready to understand
each other that no insistence and no professions now
were necessary, and that Maurice Glanvil had not
even broken into a murmur of gratitude at this quick
revelation of liis old friend’s beautiful conception of a
nobler remedy — the endeavour to place their union
outside themselves, to make their children know the
happiness they had missed. They had not needed
to teach each other what they saw, what they guessed,
what moved them with pity and hope, and there were
transitions enough safely skipped in the simple con-
versation I have preserved. But what Mrs. Tregent
was ready to do for him filled Maurice Glanvil, for
days after this, with an even greater wonder, and it
seemed to him that not till then had she fully shown
him that she had forgiven him.

Six months, however, proved much more than
sufficient for her attempt to test the plasticity of her
son. Maurice Glanvil went abroad, but was nervous
and restless, wandering from place to place, revisiting
old scenes and old friends, reverting, with a conscious,
an even amused incongruity, and yet with an effect
that was momentarily soothing, to places at whicn
he had stayed with his wife, but feeling all the while
that he was really staking his child's happiness. It
only half reassured him to feel that Vera would never
know what poor Fanny Knocker had been condemned
to know, for the daily contact was cruel from the
moment the issue was uncertain ; and it only half
helped him to reflect that she was not so plain as
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THE WHEEL OF TIME

Fanny, for had not Arthur Tregent given him the
impression that the young man of the present was
intrinsically even more difficult to please than the
young man of the past ? The letters he received from
Blanklcy conveyed no information about Arthur
beyond the fact that he was at home ; only once Vera
mentioned that he was “ remarkably good ” to her.
Toward the end of November he found himself in
Paris, submitting reluctantly to social accidents which
put off from day to day his return to London, when,
one morning in the Rue de Rivoli, he had to stop short
to permit the passage of a vehicle which had emerged
from the court of an hotel. It was an open cab — the
day was mild and bright — with a small quantity of
neat, leathery luggage, which Maurice vaguely recog-
nised as English, stowed in the place beside the driver
— luggage from which his eyes shifted straight to the
occupant of the carriage, a young man with his face
turned to the allurements of travel and the urbanity of
farewell to bowing waiters still visible in it. The
young man was so bright and so on his way, as it were,
that Maurice, standing there to make room for him,
felt for the instant that he too had taken a tip. The
feeling became acute as he recognised that this humili-
ating obligation was to no less a person than Arthur
Tregent. It was Arthur who was so much on his
way — it was Arthur who was catching a train. He
noticed his mother’s friend as the cab passed into the
street, and, with a quick demonstration, caused the
driver to pull up. He jumped out, and under the
arcade the two men met with every appearance of
cordiality, but with conscious confusion. Each of
them coloured perceptibly, and Maurice was angry
with himself for blushing before a boy. Long after-
wards he remembered how cold, and even how hard,
was the handsome clearness of the young eyes that met
his own in an artificial smile.

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“You here ? I thought you were at Blankley.”

“ I left Blank] ey yesterday ; I'm on my way to
Spain.”

" To Spain ? How charming ! ”

“ To join a friend there — just for a month or two.”

“ Interesting country — well worth seeing. Your
mother’s all right ? ”

“ Oh, yes, all right. And Miss Glanvil ”

Arthur Tregent went on, cheerfully.

“ Vera’s all right ? ” interrupted Maurice, with a
still gayer tone.

“ Every one, everything’s all right ! ” Arthur
laughed.

“ Well, I mustn’t keep you. Bon voyage ! ”

Maurice Glanvil, after the young man had driven
on, flattered himself that in this brief interview he
had suppressed every indication of surprise ; but that
evening he crossed the Channel, and on the morrow
he went down to Blankley. “To Spain— to Spain ! ”
the words kept repeating themselves in his ears. He,
when he had taken flight in a similar conjunction,
had only got, for the time, as far as Boulogne ; and
he was reminded afresh of the progress of the species.
When he was introduced into the drawing-room at
Blankley — a chintzy, flowery, friendly expanse — Mrs.
Tregent rose before him alone and offered him a face
that she had never shown before. She was white and
she looked scared ; she faltered in her movement to
meet him.

“ I met Arthur in Paris, so I thought I might
come.”

Oh, yes ; there was pain in her face, and a kind of
fear of him that frightened him, but their hands found
each other’s hands while she replied : “He went off —
I didn’t know it.”

“ But you had a letter the next morning,” Maurice
said.

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She stared. “ How did you know that ? ”

“ Who should know better than I ? He wrote
from London, explaining/’

“ I did what I could — I believed in it ! ” said Mrs.
Tregent. “ He was charming, for a while.”

“ But he broke down. She's too short, eh ? ”
Maurice asked.

” Don’t laugh ; she’s ill.”

“ What’s the matter with her ? ”

Mrs. Tregent gave the visitor a look in which there
was almost a reproach for the question. " She has
had a chill ; she’s in bed. You must see her.”

She took him upstairs and he saw his child. He
remembered what his mother had told him of the
grievous illness of Fanny Knocker. Poor little Vera
lay there in the flush of a feverish cold which had come
on the evening before. She grew worse from the
effect of a complication, and for three days he was
anxious about her ; but even more than with his
alarm he held his breath before the distress, the dis-
appointment, the humility of his old friend. Up to
this hour he had not fully measured the strength of
her desire to do something for him, or the intensity of
passion with which she had wished to do it in the
particular way that had now broken down. She had
counted on her influence with her son, on his affection
and on the maternal art, and there was anguish in her
compunction for her failure, for her false estimate of
the possible. Maurice Glanvil reminded her in vain
of the consoling fact that Vera had known nothing of
any plan, and he guessed indeed the reason why this
theory had no comfort. No one could be better aware
than Fanny Tregent of how much girls knew who knew
nothing. It was doubtless this same sad wisdom that
kept her sombre when he expressed a confidence that
his child would promptly recover. She herself had
had a terrible fight — and yet with the physical victory,
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THE WHEEL OF TIME

had she recovered ? Her apprehension for Vera was
justified, for the poor girl was destined finally to
forfeit even the physical victory. She got better, she
got up, she quitted Blankley, she quitted England with
her father, but her health had failed and a year later
it gave way. Overtaken in Rome by a second illness,
she succumbed ; unlike Fanny Knocker she was never
to have her revenge.

154

COLLABORATION

i55

I don’t know how much people care for my work,
but they like my studio (of which indeed I am exceed-
ingly fond myself), as they show by their inclination
to congregate there at dusky hours on winter after-
noons, or on long dim evenings when the place looks
well with its rich combinations and low-burning lamps
and the bad pictures (my own) are not particularly
visible. I won’t go into the question of how many
of these are purchased, but I rejoice in the distinction
that my invitations are never declined. Some of my
visitors have been good enough to say that on Sunday
evenings in particular there is no pleasanter place in
Paris — where so many places are pleasant — none
friendlier to easy talk and repeated cigarettes, to the
exchange of points of view and the comparison of
accents. The air is as international as only Parisian
air can be ; women, I surmise, think they look well
in it ; they come also because they fancy they are
doing something Bohemian, just as many of the men
cDme because they suppose they are doing some-
thing correct. The old heraldic cushions on the
divans, embossed with rusty gold, are favourable
both to expansion and to contraction — that of course
of contacting parties — and the Italian brocade on
the walls appeals to one's highest feelings. Music
makes its home there — though I confess I am not
quite the master of that house, and when it is going
on in a truly receptive hush I enjoy the way my
company leans back and gazes through the thin
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COLLABORATION

smoke of cigarettes up at the distant Tiepolo in the
almost palatial ceiling. I make sure the piano, the
tobacco and the tea are all of the best.

For the conversation, I leave that mostly to take
care of itself. There are discussions of course and
differences — sometimes even a violent circulation
of sense and sound ; but I have a consciousness that
beauty flourishes and that harmonies prevail in the
end. I have occasionally known a visitor to be rude
to me because he disliked another visitor’s opinions
— I had seen an old habitue slip away without bidding
me good-night on the arrival of some confident speci-
men of les jeunes ; but as a general thing we have it
out together on the spot — the place is really a chamber
of justice, a temple of reconciliation : we understand
each other if we only sit up late enough. Art protects
her children in the long run— she only asks them
to trust her. She is like the Catholic Church — she
guarantees paradise to the faithful. Music, moreover,
is a universal solvent ; though I've not an infallible
ear I've a sufficient sense of the matter for that. Ah,
the wounds I've known it to heal— -the bridges I’ve
known it to build — the ghosts I've known it to lay !
Though I’ve seen people stalk out I've never observed
them not to steal back. My studio in short is the
theatre of a cosmopolite drama, a comedy essentially
“ of character.”

One of the liveliest scenes of the performance was
the evening, last winter, on which I became aware
that one of my compatriots — an American, my good
friend Alfred Bonus — was engaged in a controversy
somewhat acrimonious, on a literary subject, with
Herman Heidenmauer, the young composer who had
been playing to us divinely a short time before and
whom I thought of neither as a disputant nor as an
Englishman. I perceived in a moment that something
had happened to present him in this combined char-

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COLLABORATION

acter to poor Bonus, who was so ardent a patriot that
he lived in Paris rather than in London, who had
met his interlocutor for the first time on this occasion,
and who apparently had been misled by the perfec-
tion with which Heidenmauer spoke English — he
spoke it really better than Alfred Bonus. The young
musician, a born Bavarian, had spent a few years in
England, where he had a commercial step-brother
planted and more or less prosperous — a helpful man
who had watched over his difficult first steps, given
him a temporary home, found him publishers and
pupils, smoothed the way to a stupefied hearing for
his first productions. He knew his London and
might at a first glance have been taken for one of its
products ; but he had, in addition to a genius of the
sort that London fosters but doesn’t beget, a very
German soul. He brought me a note from an old
friend on the other side of the Channel, and I liked
him as soon as I looked at him ; so much indeed
that I could forgive him for making me feel thin
and empirical, conscious that he was one of the
higher kind whom the future has looked in the
face. He had met through his gold spectacles her
deep eyes, and some mutual communication had
occurred. This had given him a confidence which
passed for conceit only with those who didn’t know
the reason.

I guessed the reason early, and, as may be imagined,
he didn’t grudge me the knowledge. He was happy
and various — as little as possible the mere long-haired
musiemonger. His hair was short — it was only his
legs and his laughter that were long. He was fair
and rosy, and his gold spectacles glittered as if in
response to the example set them by his beautiful
young golden beard. You would have been sure he
was an artist without going so far as to decide" upon
his particular passion ; for you would have been

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COLLABORATION

conscious that whatever this passion might be it was
acquainted with many of the others and mixed with
them to its profit. Yet these discoveries had not
been fully made by Alfred Bonus, whose occupation
was to write letters to the American journals about
the way the “ boys ” were coming on in Paris ; for in
such a case he probably would not have expected
such nebulous greatness to condense at a moment’s
notice. Bonus is clever and critical, and a sort of
self-appointed emissary or agent of the great republic.
He has it at heart to prove that the Americans in
Europe do get on — taking for granted on the part of
the Americans at home an interest in this subject
greater, as I often assure him, than any really felt.
“ Come, now, do I get on ? ” I often ask him ; and I
sometimes push the inquiry so far as to stammer :
“ And you, my dear Bonus, do you get on ? ” He is
apt to look a little injured on such occasions, as if he
would like to say in reply : “ Don't you call it success
to have Sunday evenings at which I’m a regular
attendant ? And can you question for a moment
the figure I make at them ? ” It has even occurred
to me that he suspects me of painting badly on
purpose to spite him — that is to interfere with his
favourite dogma. Therefore to spite me in return
he’s in the heroic predicament of refusing to admit
that I’m a failure. He takes a great interest in
the plastic arts, but his intensest sympathy is for
literature. This sentiment is somewhat starved, as
in that school the boys languish as yet on a back
seat. To show what they are doing Bonus has to
retreat upon the studios, but there is nothing he
enjoys so much as having, when the rare chance
offers, a good literary talk. He follows the French
movement closely and explains it profusely to our
compatriots, whom he mystifies, but who guess he’s
rather loose.

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COLLABORATION

I forget how his conversation with Heidenmauer
began — it was, I think, some difference of opinion
about one of the English poets that set them afloat.
Heidenmauer knows the English poets, and the
French, and the Italian, and the Spanish, and the
Russian — he is a wonderful representative of that
Germanism which consists in the negation of intel-
lectual frontiers. It is the English poets that, if I'm
not mistaken, he loves best, and probably the harm
was done by his having happened to say so. At any
rate Alfred Bonus let him have it, without due notice
perhaps, which is rather Alfred’s way, on the question
(a favourite one with my compatriot) of the backward
state of literature in England, for which after all
Heidenmauer was not responsible. Bonus believes
in responsibility — the responsibility of others, an atti-
tude which tends to make some of his friends ex-
tremely secretive, though perhaps it would have been
justified — as to this I’m not sure — had Heidenmauer
been, under the circumstances, technically British.
Before he had had time to explain that he was not,
the other persons present had become aware that a
kind of challenge had passed — that nation, in a sudden
startled flurry, somehow found itself pitted against
nation. There was much vagueness at first as to
which of the nations were engaged and as to what
their quarrel was about, the question coming presently
to appear less simple than the spectacle (so easily
conceivable) of a German's finding it hot for him in a
French house, a house French enough at any rate to
give countenance to the idea of his quick defeat.

How could the right cause fail of protection in any
house of which Madame de Brindes and her charming!
daughter were so good as to be assiduous frequenters ?

I recollect perfectly the pale gleam of joy in the
mother’s handsome face when she gathered that what
had happened was that a detested German was on his
161 M

COLLABORATION

defence. She wears her eternal mourning (I admit
it’s immensely becoming) for a triple woe, for multi-
plied griefs and wrongs, all springing from the crash
of the Empire, from the battlefields of 1870. Her
husband fell at Sedan, her father and her brother on
still darker days ; both her own family and that of
M. de Brindes, their general situation in life, were, as
may be said, creations of the Empire, so that from
one hour to the other she found herself sinking with
the wreck. You won’t recognise her under the name
I give her, but you may none the less have admired,
between their pretty lemon-coloured covers, the touch-
ing tales of Claude Lorrain. She plies an ingenious,
pathetic pen and has reconciled herself to effort and
privation for the sake of her daughter. I say priva-
tion, because these distinguished women are poor,
receive with great modesty and have broken with a
hundred of those social sanctities that are dearer to
French souls than to any others. They have gone
down into the market-place, and Paule de Brindes,
who is three-and-twenty to-day and has a happy turn
for keeping a water-colour liquid, earns a hundred
francs here and there. She is not so handsome as
her mother, but she has magnificent hair and what
the French call a look of race, and is, or at least was
till the other day, a frank and charming young woman.
There is something exquisite in the way these ladies
are earnestly, conscientiously modem. From the
moment they accept necessities they accept them all,
and poor Madame de Brindes flatters herself thrd she
has made her dowerless daughter one of us others.
The girl goes out alone, talks with young men and,
^although she only paints landscape, takes a free view
of the convenances. Nothing can please either of
them more than to tell them they have thrown over
their superstitions. They haven't, thank heaven ;
and when I want to be reminded of some of the
162

COU.fcBOKA.TlON

. Hi et in the worM— a OwusftfiA to*

ana peasant forms, ami " f w,iat K ra “* ^ ^

tlw sake of grace - -I know where to go tor It.

It was a part of this pious heresy — muih more
august in the way they presented it than some. of
the aspects of t\ie old faith -that Paulo should have
become “ engaged.” quite like a jeune wees, to my
brilliant iriend Felix Vcndemer. He is such a votary
of the modern that he was inevitably interested in
the girl of the future and had matched one reform
with another, being ready to marry without a penny,

as the clearest way of expressing his appreciation,
this favourable specimen of the type. He simply
fell in love with Mademoiselle de Brindes and behaved,
on his side, equally like one of us others, except that
he begged me to ask her mother for her hand. I was
inspired to do so with eloquence, and my friends were
not insensible of such an opportunity to show that
they now lived in the world of realities. Vendemer’s
sole fortune is his genius, and he and Paule, who
confessed to an answering flame, plighted their troth
like a pair of young rustics or (what comes for French
people to the same thing) young Anglo-Saxons.
Madame de Brindes thinks such doings at bottom
very vulgar ; but vulgar is what she tries hard to be,
she is so convinced it is the only way to make a living.
Vendemer had had at that time only the first of his
successes, which was not, as you will remember —
and unfortunately for Madame dc Brindes — of this
remunerative kind. Only a few people recognised
the perfection of his little volume of verse : my
acquaintance with him originated in my having been
one of the few. A volume of verse was a scanty prol*
vision to marry on, so that, still like a pair of us others,
the luckless lovers had to bide their time. Presently,
however, came the success (again a success only with
those who care for quality, not with the rough and
163

COLLABORATION

ready public) of his comedy in verse at the Fran£ais.
This charming work had just been taken off (it had
been found not to make money), when the various
parties to my little drama met Heidenmauer at my
studio.

Vendemer, who has, as indeed the others have, a
passion for music, was tremendously affected by
hearing him play two or three of his compositions,
and I immediately saw that the immitigable German
quality was a morsel much less bitter for him than
for the two uncompromising ladies. He went so far
as to speak to Heidenmauer frankly, to thank him
with effusion, an effort of which neither of the quiver-
ing women would have been capable. Vendemer
was in the room the night Alfred Bonus raised his
little breeze ; I saw him lean on the piano and listen
with a queer face, looking, however, rather wonder-
ingly at Heidenmauer. Before this I had noticed the
instant paleness (her face was admirably expressive)
with which Madame de Brindes saw her prospective
son-in-law make up, as it were, to the original Teuton,
whose national character was intensified to her aching
mind, as it would have been to that of most French-
women in her place, by his wash of English colour.
A German was bad enough — but a German with
English aggravations ! Her senses were too fine to
give her the excuse of not feeling that his composi-
tions were interesting, and she was capable, magnani-
mously, of listening to them with dropped eyes ; but
(much as it ever cost her not to be perfectly court- ous)
she couldn’t have made even the most superficial
speech to him about them. Marie de Brindes could
Iftever have spoken to Herman Heidenmauer. It was
a narrowness if you will, but a narrowness that to my
vision was enveloped in a dense atmosphere — a kind
of sunset bloom — of enriching and fortifying things.
Herman Heidenmauer himself, like the man of imagina-
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COLLABORATION

tion and the lover of life that he was, would have
entered into it delightedly, been charmed with it as a
fine case of bigotry. This was conspicuous in Marie
de Brindes : her loyalty to the national idea was that
of a devote to a form of worship. She never spoke of
France, but she always made me think of it, and
with an authority which the women of her race seem
to me to have in the question much more than the
men. I daresay I'm rather in love with her, though,
being considerably younger, I’ve never told her so —
as if she would in the least mind that ! I have
indeed been a little checked by a spirit of allegiance
to Vendemer ; suspecting always (excuse my sophisti-
cation) that in the last analysis it is the mother's
charm that he feels — or originally felt — in the
daughter’s. He spoke of the elder lady to me in
those days with the insistence with which only a
Frenchman can speak of the objects of his affection.
At any rate there was always something symbolic
and slightly ceremonial to me in her delicate cameo-
face and her general black-robed presence : she made
me think of a priestess or a mourner, of revolutions
and sieges, detested treaties and ugly public things.
I pitied her, too, for the strife of the elements in her
— for the way she must have felt a noble enjoyment
mutilated. She was too good for that, and yet she
was too rigid for anything else ; and the sight of such
dismal perversions made me hate more than ever the
stupid terms on which nations have organised their
intercourse.

When she gathered that one of my guests was
simply cramming it down the throat of another that
the English literary mind was not even literary, she
turned away with a vague shrug and a pitiful look
at her daughter for the taste of people who took their
pleasure so poorly : the truth in question would be
so obvious that it was not worth making a scene

165

COLLABORATION

about. Madame de Brindcs evidently looked at any
scene between the English and the Americans as a
quarrel proceeding vaguely from below stairs — a
squabble sordidly domestic. Her almost immediate
departure with her daughter operated as a lucky
interruption, and 1 caught for the first time in the
straight, spare girl, as she followed her mother, a little
of the air that Vendemer had told me he found in her,
the still exaltation, the brown uplifted head that we
attribute, or that at any rate he made it visible to me
that he attributed, to the dedicated Maid. He con-
sidered that his intended bore a striking resemblance
to Jeanne d'Arc, and he marched after her on this
occasion like a square-shouldered armour-bearer. He
reappeared, however, after he had put the ladies into
a cab, and half an hour later the rest of my friends,
with the sole exception of Bonus, having dispersed,
he was sitting up with me in the empty studio for
another bout de causerie. At first perhaps I was too
occupied with reprimanding my compatriot to give
much attention to what Vendemer might have to
say ; I remember at any rate that 1 had asked Bonus
what had induced him to make so grave a blunder.
He was not even yet, it appeared, aware of his blunder,
so that I had to inquire by what odd chance he had
taken Heidenmauer for a bigoted Briton.

"If I spoke to him as one he answered as one ;
that’s bigoted enough,” said Alfred Bonus.

" He was confused and amused at your onslaught :
he wondered what fly had stung you.”

" The fly of patriotism,” Vendemer suggested.

"Do you like him — a beast of a German?”
Bonus demanded.

" If he’s an Englishman he isn’t a German — il
faut opter. We can hang him for the one or for the
other, we can’t hang him for both. I was immensely
struck with those things he played.”

1 66

COLLABORATION

“ They had no charm for me, or doubtless I too
should have been demoralised,” Alfred said. " He
seemed to know nothing about Miss Brownrigg. Now
Miss Brownrigg's great.”

“ I like the things and even the people you quarrel
about, you big babies of the same breast. C'est a se
tor dr e ! ” Vcndemer declared.

" I may be very abject, but I do take an interest
in the American novel,” Alfred rejoined.

" I hate such expressions : there's no such thing
as the American novel.”

“ Is there by chance any such thing as the
French ? ”

“ Pas davantage — for the artist himself : how” can
you ask ? I don't know what is meant by French art
and English art and American art : those seem to me
mere cataloguers’ and reviewers' and tradesmen’s
names, representing preoccupations utterly foreign to
the artist. Art is art in every country, and the novel
(since Bonus mentions that) is the novel in every
tongue, and hard enough work they have to live up
to that privilege, without our adding another muddle
to the problem. The reader, the consumer may call
things as he likes, but we leave him to his little
amusements.” I suggested that we were all readers
and consumers ; which only made Vendcmer con-
tinue : "Yes, and only a small handful of us have the
ghost of a palate. But you and 1 and Bonus are of
the handful.”

" What do you mean by the handful ? ” Bonus
inquired.

Vendcmer hesitated a moment. " I mean the few
intelligent people, and even the few people who are

not ’ ' He paused again an instant, long enough for

me to request him not to say what they were " not,”
and then went on : " People in a word who have the
honour to live in the only country worth living in.”
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COLLABORATION

“ And pray what country is that ? ”

“ The land of dreams — the country of art.”

“ Oh, the land of dreams ! I live in the land of
realities ! ” Bonus exclaimed. “ What do you all
mean then by chattering so about le roman russe ? ”

“ It's a convenience — to identify the work of three
or four, la-bas, because we’re so far from it. But do
you see them writing ' le roman russe ’ ? ”

“ I happen to know that that’s exactly what they
want to do, some of them,” said Bonus.

“ Some of the idiots, then ! There are plenty of
those everywhere. Anything born under that silly
star is sure not to count.”

“ Thank God I’m not an artist ! ” said Bonus.

'* Dear Alfred’s a critic,” I explained.

“ And I’m not ashamed of my country,” he sub-
joined.

“ Even a critic perhaps may be an artist,” Ven-
demer mused.

" Then as the great American critic Bonus may
be the great American artist,” I went on.

“ Is that what you’re supposed to give us —
* American ’ criticism ? ” Vendemer asked, with dis-
may in his expressive, ironic face. “ Take care, take
care, or it will be more American than critical, and
then where will you be ? However,” he continued,
laughing and with a change of tone, “ I may see the
matter in too lurid a light, for I've just been favoured
with a judgement conceived in the purest spirit of our
own national genius.” He looked at me a moment
and then he remarked : "That dear Madame de
Brindes doesn’t approve of my attitude.”

” Your attitude ? ”

“ Toward your German friend. She let me know
it when I went down stairs with her — told me I was
much too cordial, that I must observe myself.”

“ And what did you reply to that ? ”

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COLLABORATION

“ I answered that the things he had played were
extraordinarily beautiful."

" And how did she meet that ? "

" By saying that he’s an enemy of our country."

" She had you there," I rejoined.

“ Yes, I could only reply ‘ there madame, voyons /’ "

“ That was meagre."

" Evidently, for it did no more for me than to
give her a chance to declare that he can’t possibly
be here for any good and that he belongs to a race
it’s my sacred duty to loathe."

“ I see what she means."

“ I don’t then — where artists are concerned. I
said to her : ‘ Ah y madame , vous savez que pour moi
il n'y a que V art ! * "

“ It’s very exciting ! " I laughed. “ How could
she parry that ? "

“ ‘ I know it, my dear child — but for him ? ’
That’s the way she parried it. ‘ Very well, for
him ? ’ I asked. ‘ For him there’s the insolence
of the victor and a secret scorn for our incurable
illusions ! ’ "

" Heidenmauer has no insolence and no secret
scorn."

Vendemer was silent a moment. " Are you very
sure of that ? "

" Oh, I like him ! He’s out of all that, and far
above it. But what did Mademoiselle Paule say ? "
I inquired.

“ She said nothing — she only looked at me."

“ Happy man ! "

“ Not a bit. She looked at me with strange eyes,
in which I could read * Go straight, my friend — go
straight ! ’ Oh, les femmes, les femmes ! "

“ What's the matter with them now ? "

“ They’ve a mortal hatred of art ! ”

“ It’s a true, deep instinct," said Alfred Bonus.

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COLLABORATION

“ But what passed further with Madame de
Brindes ? " I went on.

“ She only got into her cab, pushing her daughter
first ; on which I slammed the door rather hard and
came up here. Cela ma porte sur les nerfs.”

“ I'm afraid I haven’t soothed them," Bonus said,
looking for his hat. When he had found it he added :
“ When the English have beaten us and pocketed
our milliards I'll forgive them ; but not till then ! "
And with this he went off, made a little uncomfortable,
I think, by Vendemer's sharper alternatives, while
the young Frenchman called after him : “ My dear
fellow, at night all cats are grey ! "

Vendcmer, when we were left alone together,
mooned about the empty studio awhile and asked
me three or four questions about Heidenmauer. I
satisfied his curiosity as well as I could, but I de-
manded the reason of it. The reason he gave was
that one of the young German's compositions had
already begun to haunt his memory ; but that was
a reason which, to my sense, still left something un-
explained. I didn't however challenge him, before
he quitted me, further than to warn him against being
deliberately perverse.

“ What do you mean by being deliberately per-
verse ? " He fixed me so with his intensely living
French eye that I became almost blushingly con-
scious of a certain insincerity and, instead of telling
him what I meant, tried to get off with the deplomble
remark that the prejudices of Mesdames de Brindes
were after all respectable. " That’s exactly what
makes them so odious ! " cried Vendemer.

A few days after this, late in the afternoon, Her-
man Heidenmauer came in to see me and found the
young Frenchman seated at my piano — trying to win
back from the keys some echo of a passage in the
Abendlied we had listened to on the Sunday evening.
170

COLLABORATION

They met, naturally, as good friends, and Heiden-
mauer sat down with instant readiness and gave him
again the page he was trying to recover. He asked
him for his address, that he might send him the com-
position, and at Vendemcr’s request, as we sat in the
firelight, played half-a-dozen other things. Vendemer
listened in silence but to my surprise took leave of
me before the lamp was brought in. I asked him to
stay to dinner (I had already appealed to Heiden-
mauer to stay), but he explained that he was engaged
to dine with Madame de Brindes — d la maison as he
always called it. When he had gone Heidenmauer,
with whom on departing he had shaken hands without
a word, put to me the same questions about him that
Vendemer had asked on the Sunday evening about
the young German, and I replied that my visitor
would find in a small volume of remarkable verse
published by Lemcrre, which I placed in his hands,
much of the information he desired. This volume,
which had just appeared, contained, beside a reprint
of Vendemcr’s earlier productions, many of them
admirable lyrics, the drama that had lately been
played at the Fran<;ais, and Heidenmauer took it
with him when he left me. But he left me late, and
before this occurred, all the evening, we had much
talk about the French nation. In the foreign colony
of Paris the exchange of opinions on this subject is
one of the most inevitable and by no means the least
interesting of distractions ; it furnishes occupation to
people rather conscious of the burden of leisure.
Heidenmauer had been little in Paris, but he was all
the more open to impressions ; they evidently poured
in upon him and he gave them a generous hospitality.
In the diffused white light of his fine German intelli-
gence old colours took on new tints to me, and while
we spun fancies about the wonderful race around us
I added to my little stock of notions about his own.

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COLLABORATION

I saw that his admiration for our neighbours was a
very high tide, and I was struck with something bland
and unconscious (noble and .serene in its absence of
precautions) in the way he let his doors stand open
to it. It would have been exasperating to many
Frenchmen ; he looked at them through his clear
spectacles with such an absence of suspicion that they
might have anything to forgive him, such a thin meta-
physical view of instincts and passions. He had the
air of not allowing for recollections and nerves, and
would doubtless give them occasion to make afresh
some of their reflections on the tact of ces gens-la.

A couple of days after I had given him Vcndemer’s
book he came back to tell me that he found great
beauty in it. “ It speaks to me — it speaks to me,”
he said with his air of happy proof. “ I liked the
songs — I liked the songs. Besides/' he added, ” I
like the little romantic play — it has given me wonder-
ful ideas ; more ideas than anything has done for a
long time. Yes — yes.”

“ What kind of ideas ? ”

“ Well, this kind.” And he sat down to the piano
and struck the keys. I listened without more
questions, and after a while I began to understand.
Suddenly he said : “ Do you know the words of

that ? ” and before I could answer he was rolling out
one of the lyrics of the little volume. The poem
was strange and obscure, yet irresistibly beautiful,
and he had translated it into music still more tan-
talising than itself. He sounded the words wit*» his
German accent, barely perceptible in English but
strongly marked in French. He dropped them and
took them up again ; he was playing with them,
feeling his way. “ This is my idea ! ” he broke out ;
he had caught it, in one of its mystic mazes, and he
rendered it with a kind of solemn freshness. There
was a phrase he repeated, trying it again and again,
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COLLABORATION

and while he did so he chanted the words of the song
as if they were an illuminating flame, an inspiration.
I was rather glad on the whole that Vendemer didn't
hear what his pronunciation made of them, but as I
was in the very act of rejoicing I became aware that
the author of the verses had opened the door. He
had pushed it gently, hearing the music ; then hear-
ing also his own poetry he had paused and stood
looking at Heidenmauer. The young German nodded
and laughed and, irrcflectively, spontaneously, greeted
him with a friendly " Was sagen Sie dazu ? ” I saw
Vendemer change colour ; he blushed red and, for an
instant, as he stood wavering, I thought he was going
to retreat. But I beckoned him in and, on the divan
beside me, patted a place for him to sit.

He came in but didn't take this place ; he went
and stood before the fire to warm his feet, turning
his back to us. Heidenmauer played and played,
and after a little Vendemer turned round ; he looked
about him for a seat, dropped into it and sat
with his elbows on his knees and his head in his
hands. Presently Heidenmauer called out, in French,
above the music : “I like your songs — I like them
immensely ! '' but the young Frenchman neither
spoke nor moved. When, however, five minutes later
Heidenmauer stopped he sprang up with an entreaty
to him to go on, to go on for the love of God. “ Foild
— foild ! " cried the musician, and with hands for an
instant suspended he wandered off into mysterious
worlds. He played Wagner and then Wagner again
— a great deal of Wagner ; in the midst of which,
abruptly, he addressed himself again to Vendemer,
who had gone still further from the piano, launching
to me, however, from his corner a “ Dieu, que e'est
beau ! " which I saw that Heidenmauer caught.
“ I've a conception for an opera, you know — I'd give
anything if you'd do the libretto ! '* Our German
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COLLABORATION

friend laughed out, after this, with clear good nature,
and the rich appeal brought Vendemer slowly to his
feet again, staring at the musician across the room
and turning this time perceptibly pale.

I felt there was a drama in the air, and it made
me a little nervous ; to conceal which I said to
Heidenmauer : " What’s your conception ? What’s
your subject ? ”

“ My conception would be realised in the subject
of M. Vendemcr’s play — if he'll do that for me in a
great lyric manner ! ” And with this the young
German, who had stopped playing to answer me,
quitted the piano and Vendemer got up to meet him.
“ The subject is splendid — it has taken possession of
me. Will you do it with me ? Will you work with
me ? We shall make something great ! ”

“ Ah, you don’t know what you ask ! ” Vendemer
answered, with his pale smile.

" I do — I do : I’ve thought of it. It will be bad
for me in my country ; I shall suffer foi it. They
won’t like it — they’ll abuse me for it — they'll say of
me pis que pendre.” Heidenmauer pronounced it
bis que bendre.

“ They'll hate my libretto so ? ” Vendemer asked.

“.Yes, your libretto — they’ll say it’s immoral and
horrible. And they'll say I'm immoral and horrible
for having worked with you,” the young composer
went on, with his pleasant healthy lucidity. “ You’ll
injure my career. Oh yes, I shall suffer ! ” he joyously,
cxultingly cried.

“ Et moi done ! ” Vendemer exclaimed.

“ Public opinion, yes. I shall also make you
suffer — I shall nip your prosperity in the bud. All
that’s des betises — tes petisses ,” said poor Heidenmauer.
“ In art there are no countries.”

“Yes, art is terrible, art is monstrous,” Vendemer
replied, looking at the fire.

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COLLABORATION

“ I love your songs — they have extraordinary
beauty."

" And Vendcmer has an equal taste for your
compositions," I said to Heidenmauer.

" Tempter ! " Vendcmer murmured to me, with a
strange look.

“ C’est juste ! I mustn’t meddle — which will be all
the easier as I’m dining out and must go and dress.
You two make yourselves at home and fight it out
here."

" Do you leave me ? " asked Vendcmer, still with
his strange look.

" My dear fellow, I’ve only just time.”

"We will dine together — he and I — at one of
those characteristic places, and we will look at the
matter in its different relations," said Heidenmauer.
" Then we will come back here to finish — your studio
is so good for music.”

" There are some things it isn’t good for," Ven-
demer remarked, looking at our companion.

" It’s good for poetry — it’s good for truth," smiled
the composer.

" You’ll stay here and dine together," I said ; " my
servant can manage that.”

" No, no — we’ll go out and we'll walk together.
We’ll talk a great deal," Heidenmauer went on.
" The subject is so comprehensive," he said to
Vendemer, as he lighted another cigar.

“ The subject ? "

" Of your drama. It’s so universal."

" Ah, the universe — il ny a que fa ! " I laughed, to
Vendemer, partly with a really amused sense of the
exaggerated woe that looked out of his poetic eyes
and that seemed an appeal to me not to forsake him,
to throw myself into the scale of the associations
he would have to stifle, and partly to encourage him,
to express my conviction that two such fine minds
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COLLABORATION

couldn't in the long run be the worse for coming to
an agreement. I might have been a more mocking
Mephistopheles handing over his pure spirit to my
literally German Faust.

When I came home at eleven o’clock I found him
alone in my studio, where, evidently, for some time,
he had been moving up and down in agitated thought.
The air was thick with Bavarian fumes, with the
reverberation of mighty music and great ideas, with
the echoes of that “ universe " to which I had so
mercilessly consigned him. But I judged in a moment
that Vendemer was in a very different phase of his
evolution from the one in which I had left him. I
had never seen his handsome, sensitive face so
intensely illumined.

" §ay est — f ay est ! " he exclaimed, standing there
with his hands in his pockets and looking at me.

“ You’ve really agreed to do something together ? ”

" We’ve sworn a tremendous oath — we've taken a
sacred engagement."

“ My dear fellow, you’re a hero."

"Wait and see ! C’est tin trls-grand esprit.”

“ So much the better ! "

" C’est un bien beau genie. Ah, we’ve risen — we
soar ; nous sommes dans les grandes espaces ! " my
friend continued with his dilated eyes.

" It's very interesting — because it will cost you
something."

" It will cost me everything ! ” said Felix Wn-
demer in a tone I seem to hear at this hour. " That's
just the beauty of it. It’s the chance of chances to
testify for art — to affirm an indispensable truth."

" An indispensable truth ? ” I repeated, feeling
myself soar too, but into the splendid vague.

" Do you know the greatest crime that can be
perpetrated against it ? "

" Against it ? ” I asked, still soaring.

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COLLABORATION

“ Against the religion of art — against the love for
beauty — against the search for the Holy Grail ? ”
The transfigured look with which he named these
things, the way his warm voice filled the rich room,
was a revelation of the wonderful talk that had taken
place.

" Do you know — for one of us — the really damn-
able, the only unpardonable, sin ? ”

" Tell me, so that I may keep clear of it ! ”

" To profane our golden air with the hideous
invention of patriotism.’'

“ It was a clever invention in its time ! ” I laughed.

“I’m not talking about its time — I'm talking about
its place. It was never anything but a fifth-rate im-
pertinence here. In art there are no countries — no
idiotic nationalities, no frontiers, nor douanes, nor still
more idiotic fortresses and bayonets. It has the un-
speakable beauty of being the region in which those
abominations cease, the medium in which such vul-
garities simply can't live. What therefore are we to
say of the brutes who wish to drag them all in — to
crush to death with them all the flowers of such a
garden, to shut out all the light of such a sky ? ”
I was far from desiring to defend the “ brutes ” in
question, though there rose before me even at that
moment a sufficiently vivid picture of the way, later
on, poor Vendemer would have to face them. I
quickly perceived indeed that the picture was, to his
own eyes, a still more crowded canvas. Felix Ven-
demer, in the centre of it, was an admirable, a really
sublime figure. If there had been wonderful talk
after I quitted the two poets the wonder was not
over yet — it went on far into the night for my benefit.
We looked at the prospect in many lights, turned the
subject about almost every way it would go ; but I
am bound to say there was one relation in which we
tacitly agreed to forbear to consider it. We neither
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COLLABORATION

of us uttered the name of Paule de Brindes — the out-
look in that direction would be too serious. And yet
if Felix Vendemer, exquisite and incorruptible artist
that he was, had fallen in love with the idea of
" testifying/' it was from that direction that the finest
part of his opportunity to do so would proceed.

I was only too conscious of this when, within the
week, I received a hurried note from Madame de
Brindes, begging me as a particular favour to come
and see her without delay. I had not seen Vendemer
again, but I had had a characteristic call from Heiden-
mauer, who, though I could imagine him perfectly in
a Prussian helmet, with a needle-gun, perfectly, on
definite occasion, a sturdy, formidable soldier, gave
me a renewed impression of inhabiting, in the ex-
pansion of his genius and the exercise of his intelli-
gence, no land of red tape, no province smaller nor
more pedantically administered than the totality of
things. I was reminded afresh too that he foresaw
no striking salon-picture, no chic of execution nor
romance of martyrdom, or at any rate devoted very
little time to the consideration of such objects. He
doubtless did scant justice to poor Vendemer's atti-
tude, though he said to me of him by the way, with
his rosy deliberation : “ He has good ideas — he has
good ideas. The French mind has — for me — the taste
of a very delightful bonbon ! ” He only measured the
angle of convergence, as he called it, of their two
projections. He was in short not preoccupied with
the personal gallantry of their experiment ; h * was
preoccupied with its “ esthetic and harmonic basis."

It was without her daughter that Madame de
Brindes received me, when I obeyed her summons,
in her scrap of a quatrieme in the Rue de Miromesnil.

“ Ah, cher monsieur, how could you have permitted
such a horror — how could you have given it the
countenance of your roof, of your influence ? ” There
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COLLABORATION

were tears in her eyes, and I don’t think that for the
moment I have ever been more touched by a reproach.
But I pulled myself together sufficiently to affirm my
faith as well as to disengage my responsibility. I
explained that there was no horror to me in the matter,
that if I was not a German neither was I a Frenchman,
and that all 1 had before me was two young men
inflamed by a great idea and nobly determined to
work together to give it a great form.

" A great idea — to go over to ces gens-la ? ”

“ To go over to them ? ”

“To put yourself on their side — to throw yourself
into the arms of those who hate us — to fall into their
abominable trap ! ”

“ What do you call their abominable trap ? ”

“ Their false bonhomie , the very impudence of
their intrigues, their profound, scientific deceit and
their determination to get the advantage of us by
exploiting our generosity.”

“ You attribute to such a man as Heidenmauer
too many motives and too many calculations. He’s
quite ideally superior ! ”

“ Oh, German idealism — we know what that
means ! We’ve no use for their superiority ; let
them carry it elsewhere — -let them leave us alone.
Why do they thrust themselves in upon us and set
old wounds throbbing by their detested presence ?
We don’t go near them, or ever wish to hear their
ugly names or behold their visages de bois ; therefore
the most rudimentary good taste, the tact one would
expect even from naked savages, might suggest to
them co seek their amusements elsewhere. But
their taste, their tact — I can scarcely trust myself to
speak ! ”

Madame de Brindes did speak, however, at con-
siderable further length and with a sincerity of passion
which left one quite without arguments. There was
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COLLABORATION

no argument to meet the fact that Vendemer's
attitude wounded her, wounded her daughter, jusqu’au
fond de lame, that it represented for them abysses of
shame and suffering and that for himself it meant a
whole future compromised, a whole public alienated.
It was vain doubtless to talk of such things ; if people
didn’t feel them, if they hadn’t the fibre of loyalty,
the high imagination of honour, all explanations, all
supplications were but a waste of noble emotion.
M. Vendemer’s perversity was monstrous — she had
had a sickening discussion with him. What she
desired of me was to make one last appeal to him, to
put the solemn truth before him, to try to bring him
back to sanity. It was as if he had temporarily lost
his reason. It was to be made clear to him, par
exemple, that unless he should recover it Mademoiselle
de Brindes would unhesitatingly withdraw from her
engagement.

“ Does she really feel as you do ? ” 1 asked.

“ Do you think I put words into her mouth ? She
feels as a fille de France is obliged to feel ! "

" Doesn’t she love him then ? ”

“ She adores him. But she won’t take him without
his honour.”

“ I don't understand such refinements ! ” I said.

“ Oh, vous antres ! ” cried Madame de Brindes.
Then with eyes glowing through her tears she de-
manded : “ Don’t you know she knows how her father
died ? ” I was on the point of saying ” What has
that to do with it ?” but I withheld the question, for
after all I could conceive that it might have something.
There was no disputing about tastes, and I could only
express my sincere conviction that Vendemer was
profoundly attached to Mademoiselle Paule. “ Then
let him prove it by making her a sacrifice ! ” my
strenuous hostess replied ; to which I rejoined that
I would repeat our conversation to him and put the
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COLLABORATION

matter before him as strongly as I could. I delayed
a little to take leave, wondering if the girl would not
come in — I should have been so much more content
to receive her strange recantation from her own lips.
I couldn’t say this to Madame de Brindes ; but she
guessed I meant it, and before we separated we ex-
changed a look in which our mutual mistrust was
written — the suspicion on her side that I should not
be a very passionate intercessor and the conjecture on
mine that she might be misrepresenting her daughter.
This slight tension, I must add, was only momentary,
for I have had a chance of observing Paule de Brindes
since then, and the two ladies were soon satisfied
that I pitied them enough to have been eloquent.

My eloquence has been of no avail, and I have
learned (it has been one of the most interesting
lessons of my life) of what transcendent stuff the
artist may sometimes be made. Herman Heiden-
mauer and Felix Vendemer are, at the hour I write,
immersed in their monstrous collaboration. There
were postponements and difficulties at first, and there
will be more serious ones in the future, when it is a
question of giving the finished work to the world.
The world of Paris will stop its ears in horror, the
German Empire will turn its mighty back, and the
authors of what I foresee (oh, I've been treated to
specimens !) as a perhaps really epoch-making musical
revelation (is Heidenmauer’s style rubbing off on me ?)
will perhaps have to beg for a hearing in communities
fatally unintelligent. It may very well be that they
will not obtain any hearing at ail for years. I like
at any rate to think that time works for them. At
present they work for themselves and for each other,
amid drawbacks of several kinds. Separating after
the episode in Paris, they have met again on alien
soil, at a little place on the Genoese Riviera where
sunshine is cheap and tobacco bad, and they live (the
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COLLABORATION

two together) for five francs a day, which is all they
can muster between them. It appears that when
Heidenmauer’s London step - brother was informed
of the young composer’s unnatural alliance he instantly
withdrew his subsidy. The return of it is contingent
on the rupture of the unholy union and the destruc-
tion by flame of all the manuscript. The pair are
very poor and the whole thing depends on their
staying power. They are so preoccupied with their
opera that they have no time for pot-boilers. Ven-
demer is in a feverish hurry, lest perhaps he should
find himself chilled. There are still other details
which contribute to the interest of the episode and
which, for me, help to render it a most refreshing, a
really great little case. It rests me, it delights me,
there is something in it that makes for civilisation.
In their way they are working for human happiness.
The strange course taken by Vcndemer (I mean his
renunciation of his engagement) must moreover be
judged in the light of the fact that he was really in
love. Something had to be sacrificed, and what he
clung to most (he’s extraordinary, I admit) was the
truth he had the opportunity of proclaiming. Men
give up their love for advantages every day, but they
rarely give it up for such discomforts.

Paule de Brindes was the less in love of the two ;
I see her often enough to have made up my mind
about that. But she’s mysterious, she’s odd ; there
was at any rate a sufficient wrench in her life to
make her often absent-minded. Does her imagina-
tion hover about Felix Vendemer ? A month ago,
going into their rooms one day when her mother
was not at home (the bonne had admitted me under
a wrong impression), I found her at the piano, play-
ing one of Heidenmauer’s compositions — playing it
without notes and with infinite expression. How
had she got hold of it ? How had she learned it ?
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COLLABORATION

This was her secret — she blushed so that I didn’t pry
into it. But what is she doing, under the singular
circumstances, with a composition of Herman Heiden-
mauer’s ? She never met him, she never heard him
play but that once. It will be a pretty complication
if it shall appear that the young German genius made
on that occasion more than one intense impression.
This needn’t appear, however, inasmuch as, being
naturally in terror of the discovery by her mother
of such an anomaly, she may count on me absolutely
not to betray her. I hadn't fully perceived how
deeply susceptible she is to music. She must have a
strange confusion of feelings — a dim, haunting trouble,
with a kind of ache of impatience for the wonderful
opera somewhere in the depths of it. Don’t we live
fast after all, and doesn’t the old order change ?
Don’t say art isn’t mighty ! I shall give you some
more illustrations of it yet.

183

1 85

I

Yes indeed, I say to myself, pen in hand, I can keep
hold of the thread and let it lead me back to the first
impression. The little story is all there, I can touch
it from point to point ; for the thread, as I call it,
is a row of coloured beads on a string. None of the
beads are missing — at least I think they’re not :
that’s exactly what I shall amuse myself with finding
out.

I had been all summer working hard in town and
then had gone down to Folkestone for a blow. Art was
long, I felt, and my holiday short ; my mother was
settled at Folkestone, and I paid her a visit when I
could. I remember how on this occasion, after weeks,
in my stuffy studio, with my nose on my palette, I
sniffed up the clean salt air and cooled my eyes with
the purple sea. The place was full of lodgings, and
the lodgings were at that season full of people, people
who had nothing to do but to stare at one another on
the great flat down. There were thousands of little
chairs and almost as many little Jews ; and there was
music in an open rotunda, over which the little Jews
wagged their big noses. We all strolled to and fro and
took pennyworths of rest ; the long, level cliff-top,
edged in places with its iron rail, might have been the
deck of a huge crowded ship. There were old folks in
Bath chairs, and there was one dear chair, creeping
to its last full stop, by the side of which I always
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GLASSES

walked. There was in fine weather the coast of France
to look at, and there were the usual things to say about
it ; there was also in every state of the atmosphere
our friend Mrs. Meldrum, a subject of remark not less
inveterate. The widow of an officer in the Engineers,
she had settled, like many members of the martial
miscellany, well within sight of the hereditary enemy,
who however had left her leisure to form in spite of the
difference of their years a close alliance with my
mother. She was the heartiest, the keenest, the
ugliest of women, the least apologetic, the least morbid
in her misfortune. She carried it high aloft, with loud
sounds and free gestures, made it flutter in the breeze
as if it had been the flag of her country. It consisted
mainly of a big red face, indescribably out of drawing,
from which she glared at you through gold-rimmed
aids to vision, optic circles of such diameter and so
frequently displaced that some one had vividly
spoken of her as flattening her nose against the glass
of her spectacles. She was extraordinarily near-
sighted, and whatever they did to other objects they
magnified immensely the kind eyes behind them.
Blessed conveniences they were, in their hideous,
honest strength — they showed the good lady every-
thing in the world but her own queerness. This
element was enhanced by wild braveries of dress,
reckless charges of colour and stubborn resistances
of cut, wondrous encounters in which the art of the
toilet seemed to lay down its life. She had the tread
of a grenadier and the voice of an angel.

In the course of a walk with her the day after my
arrival I found myself grabbing her arm with sudden
and undue familiarity. I had been struck by the
beauty of a face that approached us and I was still
more affected when I saw the face, at the sight of
my companion, open like a window thrown wide. A
smile fluttered out of it as brightly as a drapery
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GLASSES

dropped from a sill — a drapery shaken there in the
sun by a young lady flanked with two young men, a
wonderful young lady who, as we drew nearer, rushed
up to Mrs. Meldrum with arms flourished for an
embrace. My immediate impression of her had been
that she was dressed in mourning, but during the few
moments she stood talking with our ‘friend I made
more discoveries. The figure from the neck dbwn was
meagre, the stature insignificant, but the desire to
please towered high, as well as the air of infallibly
knowing how and of never, never missing it. This was
a little person whom I would have made a high bid
for a good chance to paint. The head, the features,
the colour, the whole facial oval and radiance had a
wonderful purity ; the deep grey eyes — the most
agreeable, I thought, that I had ever seen — brushed
with a kind of winglike grace every object they
encountered. Their possessor was just back from
Boulogne, where she had spent a week with dear Mrs.
Floyd-Taylor : this accounted for the effusiveness of
her reunion with dear Mrs. Meldrum. Her black
garments were of the freshest and daintiest ; she
suggested a pink-and-white wreath at a showy funeral.
She confounded us for three minutes with her presence ;
she was a beauty of the great conscious, public, re-
sponsible order. The young men, her companions,
gazed at her and grinned : I could sec there were very
few moments of the day at which young men, these
or others, would not be so occupied. The people who
approached took leave of their manners ; every one
seemed to linger and gape. When she brought her
face close to Mrs. Meldrum’ s — and she appeared to
be always bringing it close to somebody’s — it was a
marvel that objects so dissimilar should express the
same general identity, the unmistakable character
of the English gentlewoman. Mrs. MeldrunTsust ained
the comparison with her usual courage, but I wondered
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GLASSES

why she didn’t introduce me : I should have had no
objection to the bringing of such a face close to mine.
However, when the young lady moved on with her
escort she herself bequeathed me a sense that some
such rapprochement might still occur. Was this by
reason of the general frequency of encounters at Folke-
stone, or by reason of a subtle acknowledgment that
she contrived to make of the rights, on the part of
others, that such beauty as hers created ? I was in a
position to answer that question after Mrs. Meldrum
had answered a few of mine.

190

II

Flora Saunt, the only daughter of an old soldier,
had lost both her parents, her mother within a few
months. Mrs. Meldrum had known them, disap-
proved of them, considerably avoided them : she had
watched the girl, off and on, from her early childhood.
Flora, just twenty, was extraordinarily alone in the
world — so alone that she had no natural chaperon, no
one to stay with but a mercenary stranger, Mrs.
Hammond Synge, the sister-in-law of one of the young
men I had just seen. She had lots of friends, but none
of them nice : she kept picking up impossible people.
The Floyd-Taylors, with whom she had been at
Boulogne, were simply horrid. The Hammond Synges
were perhaps not so vulgar, but they had no conscience
in their dealings with her.

“ She knows what I think of them,” said Mrs.
Meldrum, “ and indeed she knows what I think of
most things.”

“ She shares that privilege with most of your
friends ! ” I replied, laughing.

“ No doubt ; but possibly to some of my friends it
makes a little difference. That girl doesn't care a
button. She knows best of all what I think of Flora
Saunt.”

“ And what may your opinion be ? ”

" Why, that she’s not worth talking about — an
idiot too abysmal.”

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GLASSES

" Doesn’t she care for that ? "

“Just enough, as you saw, to hug me till I cry out.
She’s too pleased with herself for anything else to
matter.”

“ Surely, my dear friend,” I rejoined, “ she has a
good deal to be pleased with ! ”

“ So every one tells her, and so you would have
told her if I had given you a chance. However,
that doesn’t signify either, for her vanity is beyond all ■
making or mending. She believes in herself, and she’s
welcome, after all, poor dear, having only herself to
look to. I've seldom met a young woman more
completely at liberty to be silly. She has a clear course
— she’ll make a showy finish.”

“ Well,” I replied, “ as she probably will reduce
many persons to the same degraded state, her partak-
ing of it won’t stand out so much.”

“ If you mean that the world’s full of twaddlers I
quite agree with you ! ” cried Mrs. Meldrum, trumpet-
ing her laugh half across the Channel.

I had after this to consider a little what she would
call my mother’s son, but I didn’t let it prevent me
from insisting on her making me acquainted with
Flora Saunt ; indeed I took the bull by the horns,
urging that she had drawn the portrait of a nature
which common charity now demanded that she
should put into relation with a character really fine.
Such a frail creature was just an object of pity. This
contention on my part had at first of course been
jocular ; but strange to say it was quite the ground
I found myself taking with regard to our young lady
after I had begun to know her. I couldn't have said
what I felt about her except that she was undefended ;
from the first of my sitting with her there after dinner,
under the stars — that was a week at Folkestone of
balmy nights and muffled tides and crowded chairs —
I became aware both that protection was wholly
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GLASSES

absent from her life and that she was wholly indifferent
to its absence. The odd thing was that she was not
appealing : she was abjectly, divinely conceited,
absurdly, fantastically happy. Her beauty was as
yet all the world to her, a world she had plenty to do
to live in. Mrs. Meldrum told me more about her, and
there was nothing that, as the centre of a group of
giggling, nudging spectators, she was not ready to tell
about herself. She held her little court in the crowd,
upon the grass, playing her light over Jews and
Gentiles, completely at ease in all promiscuities. It
was an effect of these things that from the very first,
with every one listening, I could mention that my
main business with her would be just to have a go at
her head and to arrange in that view for an early
sitting. It would have been as impossible, I think,
to be impertinent to her as it would have been to throw
a stone at a plate-glass window ; so any talk that went
forward on the basis of her loveliness was the most
natural thing in the world and immediately became
the most general and sociable. It was when I saw
all this that I judged how, though it was the last
thing she asked for, what one would ever most have
at her service was a curious compassion. That senti-
ment was coloured by the vision of the dire exposure
of a being whom vanity had put so off her guard.
Hers was the only vanity I have ever known that
made its possessor superlatively soft. Mrs. Meldrum's
further information contributed, moreover, to these
indulgences — her account of the girl's neglected child-
hood and queer continental relegations, with straying,
squabbling, Monte-Carlo-haunting ^parents ; the more
invidious picture, above all, of her pecuniary arrange-
ment, still in force, with the Hammond Synges, who
really, though they never took her out — practically
she went out alone — had their hands half the time in
her pocket. She had to pay for everything, down to
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GLASSES

her share of the wincbills and the horses' fodder, down
to Bertie Hammond Synge's fare in the “ Under-
ground ” when he went to the City for her. She had
been left with just money enough to turn her head ;
and it hadn’t even been put in trust, nothing prudent
or proper had been done with it. She could spend her
capital, and at the rate she was going, expensive,
extravagant and with a swarm of parasites to help, it
certainly wouldn’t last very long.

" Couldn’t you perhaps take her, independent,
unencumbered as you are ? ” I asked of Mrs. Meldrum.
“ You’re probably, with one exception, the sanest
person she knows, and you at least wouldn't scandal-
ously fleece her.”

" How do you know what I wouldn’t do ? " my
humorous friend demanded. " Of course I’ve thought
how I can help her — it has kept me awake at night.
But I can’t help her at all ; she’ll take nothing from
me. You know what she does — she hugs me and runs
away. She has an instinct about me, she feels that
I've one about her. And then she dislikes me for
another reason that I’m not quite clear about, but
that I’m well aware of and that I shall find out some
day. So far as her settling with me goes it would
be impossible, moreover, here : she wants naturally
enough a much wider field. She must live in London
— her game is there. So she takes the line of adoring
me, of saying she can never forget that I was devoted
to her mother — which I wouldn’t for the world have
been — and of giving me a wide berth. I think she
positively dislikes to look at me. It's all right ;
there’s no obligation ; though people in general can’t
take their eyes off me.”

“ I see that at this moment,” I replied. “ But
what does it matter where or how, for the present,
she lives ? She’ll marry infallibly, marry early, and
everything then will change.”

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GLASSES

“ Whom will she marry ? ” my companion gloomily
asked.

" Any one she likes. She’s so abnormally pretty
she can do anything. She'll fascinate some nabob or
some prince.”

" She’ll fascinate him first and bore him afterwards.
Moreover, she’s not so pretty as you make her out ;
she has a scrappy little figure.”

" No doubt ; but one doesn't in the least notice
it.”

“Not now,” said Mrs. Meldrum, " but one will
when she’s older.”

“ When she’s older she’ll be a princess, so it won’t
matter.”

“ She has other drawbacks,” my companion went
on. “ Those wonderful eyes are good for nothing but
to roll about like sugar-balls — which they greatly
resemble — in a child’s mouth. She can’t use
them.”

“ Use them ? Why, she docs nothing else.”

“ To make fools of young men, but not to read or
write, not to do any sort of work. She never opens
a book, and her maid writes her notes. You’ll say
that those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw
stones. Of course I know that if I didn’t wear my
goggles I shouldn’t be good for much.”

“ Do you mean that Miss Saunt ought to sport
such things ? ” I exclaimed with more horror than I
meant to show.

“ I don’t prescribe for her ; I don’t know that
they're what she requires.”

“ What’s the matter with her eyes ? ” I asked after
a moment.

“ I don’t exactly know ; but I heard from her
mother years ago that even as a child they had had
for a while to put her into spectacles and that, though
she hated them and had been in a fury of disgust,
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GLASSES

she would always have to be extremely careful. I’m
sure I hope she is ! ”

I echoed the hope, but I remember well the im-
pression this made upon me — my immediate pang of
resentment, a disgust almost equal to Flora’s own. I
felt as if a great rare sapphire had split in my hand.

196

Ill

This conversation occurred the night before I went
back to town. I settled on the morrow to take a
late train, so that I had still my morning to spend at
Folkestone, where during the greater part of it I was
out with my mother. Every one in the place was as
usual out with some one else, and even had I been
free to go and take leave of her I should have been
sure that Flora Saunt would not be at home. Just
where she was I presently discovered : she was at the
far end of the cliff, the point at which it overhangs
the pretty view of Sandgate and Hythe. Her back
however was turned to this attraction ; it rested with
the aid of her elbows, thrust slightly behind her so
that her scanty little shoulders were raised toward
her ears, on the high rail that inclosed the down. Two
gentlemen stood before her whose faces we couldn't
see but who even as observed from the rear were
visibly absorbed in the charming figure-piece sub-
mitted to them. I was freshly struck with the fact
that this meagre and defective little person, with the
cock of her hat and the flutter of her crape, with her
eternal idleness, her eternal happiness, her absence of
moods and mysteries and the pretty presentation of
her feet, which especially now in the supported slope
of her posture occupied with their imperceptibility
so much of the foreground — I was reminded anew, I
say, how our young lady dazzled by some art that
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GLASSES

the enumeration of her merits didn't explain and that
the mention of her lapses didn't affect. Where she
was amiss nothing counted, and where she was right
everything did. I say she was wanting in mystery,
but that after all was her secret. This happened to
be my first chance of introducing her to my mother,
who had not much left in life but the quiet look from
under the hood of her chair at the things which, when
she should have quitted those she loved, she could still
trust to make the world good for them. I wondered
an instant how much she might be moved to trust
Flora Saunt, and then while the chair stood still and
she waited I went over and asked the girl to come and
speak to her. In this way I saw that if one of Flora's
attendants was the inevitable young Hammond Synge,
master of ceremonies of her regular court, always
offering the use of a telescope and accepting that of
a cigar, the other was a personage I had not yet
encountered, a small pale youth in showy knicker-
bockers, whose eyebrows and nose and the glued
points of whose little moustache were extraordinarily
uplifted and sustained. I remember taking him at
first for a foreigner and for something of a pretender :
I scarcely know why, unless because of the motive I
(elt in the stare he fixed on me when I asked Miss
Saunt to come away. He struck me a little as a
young man practising the social art of impertinence ;
but it didn’t matter, for Flora came away with
alacrity, bringing all her prettiness and pleasure end
gliding over the grass in that rustle of delicate m turn-
ing which made the endless variety of her garments,
as a painter could take heed, strike one always as the
same obscure elegance. She seated herself on the
floor of my mother’s chair, a little too much on her
right instep as I afterwards gathered, caressing her
stiff hand, smiling up into her cold face, commending
and approving her without a reserve and without a
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GLASSES

doubt. She told her immediately, as if it were some-
thing for her to hold on by, that she was soon to sit to
me for a " likeness,” and these words gave me a
chance to inquire if it would be the fate of the picture,
should I finish it, to be presented to the young man
in the knickerbockers. Her lips, at this, parted in
a stare ; her eyes darkened to the purple of one of
the shadow-patches on the sea. She showed for the
passing instant the face of some splendid tragic mask,
and I remembered for the inconsequence of it what
Mrs. Meldrum had said about her sight. I had
derived from this lady a worrying impulse to catechise
her, but that didn't seem exactly kind ; so I substi-
tuted another question, inquired who the pretty young
man in knickerbockers might happen to be.

“ Oh, a gentleman I met at Boulogne. He has
come over to see me.” After a moment she added :
“ He’s Lord Iffield.”

I had never heard of Lord Iffield, but her mention
of his having been at Boulogne helped me to give
him a niche. Mrs. Meldrum had incidentally thrown
a certain light on the manners of Mrs. Floyd-Taylor,
Flora's recent hostess in that charming town, a lady
who, it appeared, had a special vocation for helping
rich young men to find a use for their leisure. She
had always one or other in hand and she had appar-
ently on this occasion pointed her lesson at the rare
creature on the opposite coast. I had a vague idea
that Boulogne was not a resort of the aristocracy ;
at the same time there might very well have been a
strong attraction there even for one of the darlings
of fortune. I could perfectly understand in any case
that such a darling should be drawn to Folkestone
by Flora Saunt. But it was not in truth of these
things I was thinking ; what was uppermost in my
mind was a matter which, though it had no sort of
keeping, insisted just then on coming out.

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GLASSES

" Is it true, Miss Saunt,” I suddenly demanded,
" that you're so unfortunate as to have had some
warning about your beautiful eyes ? "

I was startled by the effect of my words ; the girl
threw back her head, changing colour from brow to
chin. “ True ? Who in the world says so ? ” I
repented of my question in a flash ; the way she
met it made it seem cruel, and I saw that my mother
looked at me in some surprise. I took care, in
answer to Flora’s challenge, not to incriminate Mrs.
Mcldrum. I answered that the rumour had reached
me only in the vaguest form and that if I had been
moved to put it to the test my very real interest in
her must be held responsible. Her blush died away,
but a pair of still prettier tears glistened in its track.
" If you ever hear such a thing said again you can
say it’s a horrid lie ! ” I had brought on a com-
motion deeper than any I was prepared for ; but it
was explained in some degree by the next words she
uttered : "I’m happy to say there's nothing the
matter with any part of my body ; not the least
little thing ! " She spoke with her habitual com-
placency, with triumphant assurance ; she smiled
again, and I could see that she was already sorry she
had shown herself too disconcerted She turned it
<$ff with a laugh. “ I’ve good eyes, good teeth, a good
digestion and a good temper. I’m sound of wind
and limb ! " Nothing could have been more charac-
teristic than her blush and her tears, nothing less
acceptable to her than to be thought not perfect in
every particular. She couldn't submit to the imputa-
tion of a flaw. I expressed my delight in what she
told me, assuring her I should always do battle for
her ; and as if to rejoin her companions she got up
from her place on my mother's toes. The young
men presented their backs to us ; they were leaning
on the rail of the cliff. Our incident had produced a
200

GLASSES

certain awkwardness, and while I was thinking of
what next to say she exclaimed irrelevantly : “ Don't
you know ? He’ll be Lord Considine.” At that
moment the youth marked for this high destiny
turned round, and she went on, to my mother : “ I’ll
introduce him to you — he's awfully nice.” She
beckoned and invited him with her parasol ; the
movement struck me as taking everything for granted.
I had heard of Lord Considine and if I had not been
able to place Lord Iffield it was because I didn't
know the name of his eldest son. The young man
took no notice of Miss Saunt’s appeal ; he only stared
a moment and then on her repeating it quietly turned
his back. She was an odd creature : she didn’t blush
at this ; she only said to my mother apologetically,
but with the frankest, sweetest amusement : "You
don’t mind, do you ? He’s a monster of shyness ! ”
It was as if she were sorry for every one — for Lord
Iffield, the victim of a complaint so painful, and for
my mother, the object of a trifling incivility. " I'm
sure I don’t want him ! ” said my mother ; but Flora
added some remark about the rebuke she would give
him for slighting us. She would clearly never
explain anything by any failure of her own power.
There rolled over me while she took leave of us and
floated back to her friends a wave of tenderness
superstitious and silly. 1 seemed somehow to see
her go forth to her fate ; and yet what should fill out
this orb of a high destiny if not such beauty and such
joy ? I had a dim idea that Lord Considine was a
great proprietor, and though there mingled with it a
faint impression that I shouldn’t like his son the
result of the two images was a whimsical prayer that
the girl mightn’t miss her possible fortune.

201

IV

One day in the course of the following June there
was ushered into my studio a gentleman whom I had
not yet seen but with whom I had been very briefly
in correspondence. A letter from him had expressed
to me some days before his regret on learning that
my “ splendid portrait ” of Miss Flora Louisa Saunt,
whose full name figured by her own wish in the
catalogue of the exhibition of the Academy, had
found a purchaser before the close of the private
view. He took the liberty of inquiring whether I
might have at his service some other memorial of the
same lovely head, some preliminary sketch, some
study for the picture. I had replied that 1 had indeed
painted Miss Saunt more than once and that if he
were interested in my work I should be happy to
show him what I had done. Mr. Geoffrey Dawling,
the person thus introduced to me, stumbled into my
room with awkward movements and equivocal sounds
— a long, lean, confused, confusing young man, with
a bad complexion and large, protrusive teeth. He
bore in its most indelible pressure the postmark, as it
were, of Oxford, and as soon as he opened his mouth
I perceived, in addition to a remarkable revelation of
gums, that the text of the queer communication
matched the registered envelope. He was full of
refinements and angles, of dreary and distinguished
knowledge. Of his unconscious drollery his dress
202

GLASSES

freely partook ; it seemed, from the gold ring into
which his red necktie was passed to the square toecaps
of his boots, to conform with a high sense of modern-
ness to the fashion before the last. There were
moments when his overdone urbanity, all suggestive
stammers and interrogative quavers, made him
scarcely intelligible ; but I felt him to be a gentleman
and I liked the honesty of his errand and the expres-
sion of his good green eyes.

As a worshipper at the shrine of beauty however
he needed explaining, especially when I found he had
no acquaintance with my brilliant model ; had on
the mere evidence of my picture taken, as he said, a
tremendous fancy to her face. I ought doubtless to
have been humiliated by the simplicity of his judge-
ment of it, a judgement for which the rendering was
lost in the subject, quite leaving out the element of
art. He was like the innocent reader for whom the
story is “ really true ” and the author a negligible
quantity. He had come to me only because he
wanted to purchase, and I remember being so amused
at his attitude, which I had never seen equally marked
in a person of education, that I asked him why, for
the sort of enjoyment he desired, it wouldn’t be more
to the point to deal directly with the lady. He
stared and blushed at this : it was plain the idea
frightened him. He was an extraordinary case —
personally so modest that I could see it had never
occurred to him. He had fallen in love with a
painted sign and seemed content just to dream of
what it stood for. He was the young prince in the
legend or the comedy who loses his heart to the
miniature of the outland princess. Until I knew him
better this puzzled me much — the link was so missing
between his sensibility and his type. He was of
course bewildered by my sketches, which implied in
the beholder some sense of intention and quality ;

203

GLASSES

but for one of them, a comparative failure, he ended
by conceiving a preference so arbitrary and so lively
that, taking no second look at the others, he expressed
the wish to possess it and fell into the extremity of
confusion over the question of the price. I simplified
that problem, and he went off without having asked
me a direct question about Miss Saunt, yet with hte
acquisition under his arm. His delicacy was such
that he evidently considered his rights to be limited ;
he had acquired none at all in regard to the original of
the picture. There were others — for I was curious
about him — that I wanted him to feel I conceded : I
should have been glad of his carrying away a sense
of ground acquired for coming back. To ensure this
I had probably only to invite him, and I perfectly
recall the impulse that made me forbear. It operated
suddenly from within while he hung about the door
and in spite of the diffident appeal that blinked in his
gentle grin. If he was smitten with Flora’s ghost
what mightn’t be the direct force of the luminary
that could cast such a shadow ? This source of
radiance, flooding my poor place, might very well
happen to be present the next time he should turn up.
The idea was sharp within me that there were com-
plications it was no mission of mine to bring about.
If they were to occur they might occur by a logic of
their own.

Let me say at once that they did occur and that I
perhaps after all had something to do with it. If
Mr. Dawling had departed without a fresh appoint-
ment he was to reappear six months later under
protection no less adequate than that of our young
lady herself. I had seen her repeatedly for months :
she had grown to regard my studio as the tabernacle
of her face. This prodigy was frankly there the sole
object of interest ; in other places there were occasion-
ally other objects. The freedom of her manners con-
204

GLASSES

tinued to be stupefying ; there was nothing so
extraordinary save the absence in connexion with
it of any catastrophe. She was kept innocent by
her egotism, but she was helped also, though she had
now put off her mourning, by the attitude of the lone
orphan who had to be a law unto herself. It was as
a lone orphan that she came and went, as a lone
orphan that she was the centre of the crush. The
neglect of the Hammond Synges gave relief to this
character, and she paid them handsomely to be, as
every one said, shocking. Lord Iffield had gone to
India to shoot tigers, but he returned in time for the
private view : it was he who had snapped up, as
Flora called it, the gem of the exhibition. My hope
for the girl’s future had slipped ignominiously off his
back, but after his purchase of the portrait I tried to
cultivate a new faith. The girl's own faith was
wonderful. It couldn’t however be contagious : too
great was the limit of her sense of what painters call
values. Her colours were laid on like blankets on a
cold night. How indeed could a person speak the
truth who was always posturing and bragging ? She
was after all vulgar enough, and by the time I had
mastered her profile and could almost with my eyes
shut do it in a single line I was decidedly tired of her
perfection. There grew to be something silly in its
eternal smoothness. One moved with her, moreover,
among phenomena mismated and unrelated ; nothing
in her talk ever matched with anything out of it.
Lord Iffield was dying of love for her, but his family
was leading him a life. His mother, horrid woman,
had told some one that she would rather he should be
swallowed by a tiger than marry a girl not absolutely
one of themselves. He had given his young friend
unmistakable signs, but he was lying low, gaining
time : it was in his father’s power to be, both in
personal and in pecuniary ways, excessively nasty to
205

GLASSES

him. His father wouldn’t last for ever — quite the
contrary ; and he knew how thoroughly, in spite of
her youth, her beauty and the swarm of her admirers,
some of them positively threatening in their passion,
he could trust her to hold out. There were richer,
cleverer men, there were greater personages too, but
she liked her “ little viscount ” just as he was, and
liked to think .that, bullied and persecuted, he had
her there so luxuriously to rest upon. She came back
to me with tale upon tale, and it all might be or
mightn’t. I never met my pretty model in the world
— she moved, it appeared, in exalted circles — and
could only admire, in her wealth of illustration, the
grandeur of her life and the freedom of her hand.

I had on the first opportunity spoken to her of
Geoffrey Dawling, and she had listened to my story
so far as she had the art of such patience, asking
me indeed more questions about him than I could
answer ; then she had capped my anecdote with
others much more striking, revelations of effects pro-
duced in the most extraordinary quarters : on people
who had followed her into railway-carriages ; guards
and porters even who had literally stuck there ;
others who had spoken to her in shops and hung
about her house-door ; cabmen, upon her honour, in
London, who, to gaze their fill at her, had found
excuses to thrust their petrifaction through the very
glasses of four-wheelers. She lost herself in these
reminiscences, the moral of which was that poor Mr.
Dawling was only one of a million. When therefore
the next autumn she flourished into my studio with
her odd companion at her heels her first care was to
make clear to me that if he was now in servitude it
wasn’t because she had run after him. Dawling
hilariously explained that when one wished very much
to get anything one usually ended by doing so — a
proposition which led me wholly to dissent and our
206

GLASSES

young lady to asseverate that she hadn’t in the least
wished to get Mr. Dawling. She mightn’t have
wished to get him, but she wished to show him, and
I seemed to read that if she could treat him as a
trophy her affairs were rather at the ebb. True there
always hung from her belt a promiscuous fringe of
scalps. Much at any rate would have come and gone
since our separation in July. She had spent four
months abroad, where, on Swiss and Italian lakes, in
German cities, in Paris, many accidents might have
happened.

207

V

I had been again with my mother, but except Mrs.
Meldrum and the gleam of France had not found at
Folkestone my old resources and pastimes. Mrs.
Meldrum, much edified by my report of the perform-
ances, as she called them, in my studio, had told
me that to her knowledge Flora would soon be on
the straw : she had cut from her capital such fine
fat slices that there was almost nothing more left to
swallow Perched on her breezy cliff the good lady
dazzled me as usual by her universal light : she
knew so much more about everything and everybody
than I could ever squeeze out of my colour-tubes.
She knew that Flora was acting on system and
absolutely declined to be interfered with : her
precious reasoning was that her money would last as
long as she should need it, that a magnificent marriage
would crown her charms before she should be really
pinched. She had a sum put by for a liberal outfit ;
meanwhile the proper use of the rest was to decorate
her for the approaches to the altar, keep her afloat in
the society in which she would most naturally meet
her match. Lord Iffield had been seen with her at
Lucerne, at Cadenabbia ; but it was Mrs. Meldrum’s
conviction that nothing was to be expected of him
but the most futile flirtation. The girl had a certain
hold of him, but with a great deal of swagger he hadn’t
the spirit of a sheep : he was in fear of his father and
208

GLASSES

would never commit himself in Lord Considine’s life-
time. The most Flora might achieve would be that
he wouldn't marry some one else. Geoffrey t)awling,
to Mrs. Meldrum’s knowledge (I had told her of the
young man's visit) , had attached himself on the way
back from Italy to the Hammond Synge group. My
informant was in a position to be definite about this
dangler ; she knew about his people : she had heard
of him before. Hadn’t he been, at Oxford, a friend
of one of her nephews ? Hadn’t he spent the Christ-
mas holidays precisely three years before at her
brother-in-law’s in Yorkshire, taking that occasion to
get himself refused with derision by wilful Betty, the
second daughter of the house ? Her sister, who liked
the floundering youth, had written to her to complain
of Betty, and that the young man should now turn
up as an appendage of Flora's was one of those oft-
cited proofs that the world is small and that there
are not enough people to go round. His father had
been something or other in the Treasury ; his grand-
father, on the mother’s side, had been something or
other in the Church. He had come into the paternal
estate, two or three thousand a year in Hampshire ;
but he had let the place advantageously and was
generous to four ugly sisters who lived at Bourne-
mouth and adored him. The family was hideous all
round, but the salt of the earth. He was supposed
to be unspeakably clever ; he was fond of London,
fond of books, of intellectual society and of the idea
of a political career. That such a man should be at
the same time fond of Flora Saunt attested, as the
phrase in the first volume of Gibbon has it, the
variety of his inclinations. I was soon to learn that
he was fonder of her than of all the other things
together. Betty, one of five and with views above
her station, was at any rate felt at home td*have
dished herself by her perversity. Of course no one
209 p

GLASSES

had looked at her since and no one would ever look
at her again. It would be eminently desirable that
Flora should learn the lesson of Betty’s fate.

I was not struck, I confess, with all this in my
mind, by any symptoms on our young lady’s part of
that sort of meditation. The only moral she saw in
anything was that of her incomparable countenance,
which Mr. Dawling, smitten even like the railway
porters and the cabmen by the doom-dealing gods,
had followed from London to Venice and from
Venice back to London again. I afterwards learned
that her version of this episode was profusely inexact :
his personal acquaintance with her had been deter-
mined by an accident remarkable enough, 1 admit,
in connexion with what had gone before — a co-
incidence at all events superficially striking. At
Munich, returning from a tour in the Tyrol with two
of his sisters, he had found himself at the table d'hote
of his inn opposite to the full presentment of that
face of which the mere clumsy copy had made him
dream and desire. He had been tossed by it to a
height so vertiginous as to involve a retreat from the
table ; but the next day he had dropped with a
resounding thud at the very feet of his apparition.
On the following, with an equal incoherence, a sacri-
fice- even of his bewildered sisters, whom he left
behind, he made an heroic effort to escape by flight
from a fate of which he already felt the cold breath.
That fate, in London, very little later, drove him
straight before it — drove him one Sunday afternoon,
in the rain, to the door of the Hammond Synges. He
marched in other words close up to the cannon that
was to blow him to pieces. But three weeks, when
he reappeared to me, had elapsed since then, yet (to
vary my metaphor) the burden he was to carry for
the rest of his days was firmly lashed to his back. I
don’t mean by this that Flora had been persuaded
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GLASSES

to contract her scope ; I mean that he had been
treated to the unconditional snub which, as the event
was to show, couldn’t have been bettered as a means
of securing him. She hadn’t calculated, but she had
said " Never ! ” and that word had made a bed big
enough for his long-legged patience. He became
from this moment to my mind the interesting figure
in the piece.

Now that he had acted without my aid I was free
to show him this, and having on his own side some-
thing to show me he repeatedly knocked at my door.
What he brought with him on these occasions was
a simplicity so huge that, as I turn my ear to the
past, I seem even now to hear it bumping up and down
my stairs. That was really what I saw of him in
the light of his behaviour. He had fallen in love
as he might have broken his leg, and the fracture
was of a sort that would make him permanently
lame. It was the whole man who limped and lurched,
with nothing of him left in the same position as before.
The tremendous cleverness, the literary society, the
political ambition, the Bournemouth sisters all seemed
to flop with his every movement a little nearer to
the floor. I hadn't had an Oxford training and I
had never encountered the great man at whose feet
poor Dawling had most submissively sat and who
had addressed him his most destructive sniffs ; but
I remember asking myself if such privileges had been
an indispensable preparation to the career on which
my friend appeared now to have embarked. I
remember too making up my mind about the clever-
ness, which had its uses and I suppose in impenetrable
shades even its critics, but from which the friction
of mere personal intercourse was not the sort of
process to extract a revealing spark. He accepted
without a question both his fever and his chill, and
the only thing he showed any subtlety about was
211

GLASSES

this convenience of my friendship. He doubtless
told me his simple story, but the matter comes back
to me in a kind of sense of my being rather the
mouthpiece, of my having had to thresh it out for
him. He took it from me without a groan, and I
gave it to him, as we used to say, pretty hot ; he
took it again and again, spending his odd half-hours
with me as if for the very purpose of learning how
idiotically he was in love. He told me I made him
see things : to begin with, hadn't I first made him
see Flora Saunt ? I wanted him to give her up and
luminously informed him why ; on which he never
protested nor contradicted , never was even so
alembicated as to declare just for the sake of the
drama that he wouldn’t. He simply and undramatic-
ally didn’t, and when at the end of three months I
asked him what was the use of talking with such a
fellow his nearest approach to a justification was to
say that what made him want to help her was just
the deficiencies I dwelt on. I could only reply without
pointing the moral : “ Oh, if you’re as sorry for her
as that ! ” I too was nearly as sorry for her as that,
but it only led me to be sorrier still for other victims
of this compassion. With Dawling as with me the
compassion was at first in excess of any visible motive ;
so that when eventually the motive was supplied each
could to a certain extent compliment the other on
the fineness of his foresight.

After he had begun to haunt my studio Miss Saunt
quite gave it up, and I finally learned that she accused
me of conspiring with him to put pressure on her
to marry him. She didn’t know I would take it that
way ; else she wouldn’t have brought him to see me.
It was in her view a part of the conspiracy ; that
to show him a kindness I asked him at last to sit
to me. I daresay, moreover, she was disgusted to
hear that I had ended by attempting almost as many
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GLASSES

sketches of his beauty as I had attempted of hers.
What was the value of tributes to beauty by a
hand that luxuriated in ugliness ? My relation to
poor Dawling’s want of modelling was simple enough.
I was really digging in that sandy desert for the buried
treasure of his soul.

213

VI

Ii befell at this period, just before Christmas, that
on my having gone under pressure of the season into
a great shop to buy a toy or two, my eye, fleeing
from superfluity, lighted at a distance on the bright
concretion of Flora Saunt, an exhibitability that held
its own even against the most plausible pinkness of
the most developed dolls. A huge' quarter of the
place, the biggest bazaar “ on earth," was peopled
with these and other effigies and fantasies, as well
as with purchasers and vendors, haggard alike in the
blaze of the gas with hesitations. I was just about
to appeal to Flora to avert that stage of my errand
when I saw that she was accompanied by a gentleman
whose identity, though more than a year had elapsed,
came back to me from the Folkestone cliff. It had
been associated in that scene with showy knicker-
bockers ; at present it overflowed more splendidly
into a fur- trimmed overcoat. Lord Iffield's presence
made me waver an instant before crossing over • and
during that instant Flora, blank and undistingmshing,
as if she too were after all weary of alternatives,
looked straight across at me. I was on the point
of raising my hat to her when I observed that her
face gave no sign. I was exactly in the line of her
vision, but she either didn't see me or didn't recognise
me, or else had a reason to pretend she didn’t. Was
her reason that I had displeased her and that she
214

GLASSES

wished to punish me ? I had always thought it one
of her merits that she wasn't vindictive. She at any
rate simply looked away ; and at this moment one
of the shop-girls, who had apparently gone off in
search of it, bustled up to her with a small mechanical
toy. It so happened that I followed closely what
then took place, afterwards recognising that I had
been led to do so, led even through the crowd to
press nearer for the purpose, by an impression of
which in the act I was not fully conscious.

Flora, with the toy in her hand, looked round at
her companion ; then seeing his attention had been
solicited in another quarter she moved away with
the shop-girl, who ha'd evidently offered to conduct
her into the presence of more objects of the same
sort. When she reached the indicated spot I was in
a position still to observe her. She had asked some
question about the working of the toy, and the girl,
taking it herself, began to explain the little secret.
Flora bent her head over it, but she clearly didn’t
understand. I saw her, in a manner that quickened
my curiosity, give a glance back at the place from
which she had come. Lord Iffield was talking with
another young person : she satisfied herself of this by
the aid of a question addressed to her own attendant.
She then drew closer to the table near which she
stood and, turning her back to me, bent her head
lower over the collection of toys and more particularly
over the small object the girl had attempted to explain.
She took it back and, after a moment, with her face
well averted, made an odd motion of her arms and
a significant little duck of her head. These slight
signs, singular as it may appear, produced in my
bosom an agitation so great that I failed to notice
Lord Iffield’s whereabouts. He had rejoined her ; he
was close upon her before I knew it or before she
knew it herself. I felt at that instant the strangest
215

GLASSES

of all impulses : if it could have operated more
rapidly it would have caused me to dash between
them in some such manner as to give Flora a warning.
In fact as it was I think I could have done this in
time had I not been checked by a curiosity stronger
still than my impulse. There were three seconds
during which I saw the young man and yet let him
come on. Didn't I make the quick calculation that
if he didn't catch what Flora was doing I too might
perhaps not catch it ? She at any rate herself took
the alarm. On perceiving her companion's nearness
she made, still averted, another duck of her head
and a shuffle of her hands so precipitate that a little
tin steamboat she had been holding escaped from
them and rattled down to the floor with a sharpness
that I hear at this hour. Lord Iffleld had already
seized her arm ; with a violent jerk he brought her
round toward him. Then it was that there met my
eyes a quite distressing sight : this exquisite creature,
blushing, glaring, exposed, with a pair of big black-
rimmed eye-glasses, defacing her by their position,
crookedly astride of her beautiful nose. She made
a grab’ at them with her free hand while I turned
confusedly away.

216

VII

I don’t remember how soon it was I spoke to Geoffrey
Dawling ; his sittings were irregular, but it was
certainly the very next time he gave me one.

" Has any rumour ever reached you of Miss Saunt's
having anything the matter with her eyes ? ” He
stared with a candour that was a sufficient answer
to my question, backing it up with a shocked and
mystified “ Never ! ” Then I asked him if he had
observed in her any symptom, however disguised,
of embarrassed sight : on which, after a moment’s
thought, he exclaimed “ Disguised ? ” as if my use
of that word had vaguely awakened a train. “ She’s
not a bit myopic," he said ; “ she doesn't blink or
contract her lids." I fully recognised this and I
mentioned that she altogether denied the impeach-
ment ; owing it to him, moreover, to explain the ground
of my inquiry, I gave him a sketch of the incident
that had taken place before me at the shop. He
knew all about Lord Ifheld : that nobleman had
figured freely in our conversation as his preferred,
his injurious rival. Poor Dawling's contention was
that if there had been a definite engagement between
his lordship and the young lady, the sort of thing
that was announced in The Morning Post, renunciation
and retirement would be comparatively easy to him ;
but that having waited in vain for any such assurance
he was entitled to act as if the door were not really
217

GLASSES

closed or were at any rate not cruelly locked. He
was naturally much struck with my anecdote and
still more with my interpretation of it.

“ There is something, there is something — possibly
something very grave, certainly something that
requires she should make use of artificial aids. She
won’t admit it publicly, because with her idolatry of
her beauty, the feeling she is all made up of, she sees
in such aids nothing but the humiliation and the dis-
figurement. She has used them in secret, but that
is evidently not enough, for the affection she suffers
from, apparently some definite ailment, has lately
grown much worse. She looked straight at me in
the shop, which was violently lighted, without seeing
it was I. At the same distance, at Folkestone, where
as you know I first met her, where I heard this
mystery hinted at and where she indignantly denied
the thing, she appeared easily enough to recognise
people. At present she couldn’t really make out
anything the shop-girl showed her. She has success-
fully concealed from the man I saw her with that she
resorts in private to a pince-nez and that she does
so not only under the strictest orders from an oculist,
but because literally the poor thing can’t accomplish
without such help half the business of life. Iffield
however has suspected something, and his suspicions,
whether expressed or kept to himself, have put him
on the watch. I happened to have a glimpse of the
movement at which he pounced on her and caught
her in the act.”

I had thought it all out ; my idea explained many
things, and Dawling turned pale as he listened to me.

“ Was he rough with her ? ” he anxiously asked.

” How can I tell what passed between them ? I
fled from the place.”

My companion stared at me a moment. ” Do you
mean to say her eyesight's going ? ”

218

GLASSES

“ Heaven forbid ! In that case how could she
take life as she does ? ”

“ How does she take life ? That’s the question ! ”
He sat there bewildercdly brooding ; the tears had
come into his eyes ; they reminded me of those I
had seen in Flora’s the day I risked my inquiry.
The question he had asked was one that to my own
satisfaction I was ready to answer, but I hesitated
to let him hear as yet all that my reflexions had
suggested. I was indeed privately astonished at their
ingenuity. For the present I only rejoined that it
struck me she was playing a particular game ; at
which he went on as if he hadn’t heard me, suddenly
haunted with a fear, lost in the dark possibility I
had opened up : “ Do you mean there’s a danger of
anything very bad ? ”

“ My dear fellow, you must ask her oculist.”

“ Who in the world is her oculist ? ”

“ I haven’t a conception. But we mustn’t get too
excited. My impression would be that she has only
to observe a few ordinary rules, to exercise a little
common sense.”

Dawling jumped at this. " I see — to stick to the
pince-nez.”

" To follow to the letter her oculist’s prescription,
whatever it is and at whatever cost to her prettiness.
It’s not a thing to be trifled with.”

“ Upon my honour it shan’t be trifled with ! ” he
roundly declared ; and he adjusted himself to his
position again as if we had quite settled the busi-
ness. After a considerable interval, while I botched
away, he suddenly said : “ Did they make a great
difference ? ”

" A great difference ? ”

“ Those things she had put on.”

" Oh, the glasses — in her beauty ? She looked
queer of course, but it was partly because one was
219

GLASSES

unaccustomed. There are women who look charming
in nippers. What, at any rate, if she does look queer ?
She must be mad not to accept that alternative.”

” She is mad,” said Geoffrey Dawting.

“ Mad to refuse you, I grant. Besides,” I went
on, “ the pince-nez, which was a large and peculiar
one, was all awry : she had half pulled it off, but it
continued to stick, and she was crimson, she was
angry.”

“ It must have been horrible ! ” my companion
murmured.

" It was horrible. But it's still more horrible to
defy all warnings ; it’s still more horrible to be

landed in ” Without saying in what I disgustedly

shrugged my shoulders.

After a glance at me Dawling jerked round.
“ Then you do believe that she may be ? ”

I hesitated. “ The thing would be to make her
believe it. She only needs a good scare.”

" But if that fellow is shocked at the precautions
she does take ? ”

“ Oh, who knows ? ” I rejoined with small sincerity.
“ I don’t suppose Iffield is absolutely a brute.”

" I would take her with leather blinders, like a
shying mare ! ” cried Geoffrey Dawling.

I had an impression that Iffield wouldn’t, but I
didn’t communicate it, for I wanted to pacify my
friend, whom I had discomposed too much for the
purposes of my sitting. I recollect that I did some
good work that morning, but it also comes back to
me that before we separated he had practically
revealed to me that my anecdote, connecting itself
in his mind with a series of observations at the time
unconscious and unregistered, had covered with light
the subject of our colloquy. He had had a formless
perception of some secret that drove Miss Saunt to
subterfuges, and the more he thought of it the more
220

GLASSES

he guessed this secret to be the practice of making
believe she saw when she didn't and of cleverly
keeping people from finding out how little she saw.
When one patched things together it was astonishing
what ground they covered. Just as he was going
away he asked me from what source, at Folkestone, the
horrid tale had proceeded. When I had given him,
as I saw no reason not to do, the name of Mrs.
Meldrum he exclaimed : “ Oh, I know all about her ;
she’s a friend of some friends of mine ! ” At this I
remembered wilful Betty and said to myself that I
knew some one who would probably prove more
wilful still.

221

VIII

A few days later 1 again heard Dawling on my
stairs, and even before be passed my threshold I
knew he had something to tell me.

“ I've been down to Folkestone — it was necessary
I should see her ! " I forget whether he had come
straight from the station ; he was at any rate out of
breath with his news, which it took me however a
minute to interpret.

“You mean that you’ve been with Mrs. Meldrum ? "

“ Yes ; to ask her what she knows and how she
comes to know it. It worked upon me awfully — I
mean what you told mo.’’ He made a visible effort
to seem quieter than he was, and it showed me
sufficiently that lie had not been reassured. I laid, to
comfort him and smiling at a venture, a friendly hand
on* his arm, and he dropped into my eyes, fixing them
an instant, a strange, distended look which might
have expressed the cold clearness of all that was to
come. “ I know — now ! ” he said with an emphasis
he rarely used.

“ What then did Mrs. Meldrum tell you ? ”

“ Only one thing that signified, for she has no real
knowledge. But that one thing was everything.”

“ What is it then ? ”

“ Why, that she can't bear the sight of her.” His
pronouns required some arranging, but after I had
successfully dealt with them I replied that I knew
222

GLASSES

perfectly Miss Saunt had a trick of turning her back
on the good lady of Folkestone. But what did that
prove ? “ Have you never guessed ? I guessed as

soon as she spoke ! ” Dawling towered over me in
dismal triumph. It was the first time in our ac-
quaintance that, intellectually speaking, this had
occurred ; but even so remarkable an incident still
left me sufficiently at sea to cause him to continue :
“ Why, the effect of those spectacles ! ”

I seemed to catch the tail of his idea. " Mrs.
Meldrum’s ? "

“ They’re so awfully ugly and they increase so the
dear woman’s ugliness." This remark began to flash
a light, and when he quickly added “ She sees herself,
she sees her own fate ! " my response was so immediate
that I had almost taken the words out of his mouth.
While I tried to fix this sudden image of Flora's face
glazed in and cross-barred even as Mrs. Meldrum's
was glazed and barred, he went on to assert that
only the horror of that image, looming out at her-
self, could be the reason of her avoiding such a
monitress. The fact he had encountered made every-
thing hideously vivid and more vivid than anything
else that just such another pair of goggles was what
would have been prescribed to Flora.

" I see — I sec,” I presently rejoined. “ What
would become of Lord Iffield if she were suddenly
to come out in them ? What indeed would become
of every one, what would become of everything ? "
This was an inquiry that Dawling was evidently un-
prepared to meet, and I completed it by saying at
last : “ My dear fellow, for that matter, what would
become of you ?

Once more he turned on me his good green eyes.
“ Oh, I shouldn’t mind ! ”

The tone of his words somehow made his ugly face
beautiful, and I felt that there dated from this moment
223

GLASSES

in my heart a confirmed affection for him. None
the less, at the same time, perversely and rudely,
I became aware of a certain drollery in our discussion
of such alternatives. It made me laugh out and say
to him while I laughed : “ You*d take her even with
those things of Mrs. Meldrum's ? ”

He remained mournfully grave ; I could see that
he was surprised at my rude mirth. But he sum-
moned back a vision of the lady at Folkestone and
conscientiously replied : “ Even with those things of
Mrs. Meldrum's/’ 1 begged him not to think my
laughter in bad taste : it. was only a practical recog-
nition of the fact that we had built a monstrous castle
in the air. Didn’t he see on what flimsy ground the
structure rested ? The evidence was preposterously
small. He believed the worst, but we were utterly
ignorant.

“ I shall find out the truth,” he promptly replied.

" How can you ? If you question her you'll simply
drive her to perjure herself. Wherein after all does
it concern you to know the truth ? It’s the girl’s
own affair.”

" Then why did you tell me your story ? ”

I was a trifle embarrassed. “To warn you off,” I
returned smiling. He took no more notice of these
words than presently to remark that Lord Iffield
had no serious intentions. “ Very possibly,” I said.
“ But you mustn't speak as if Lord Iffield and you
were her only alternatives.”

Dawling thought a moment. ” Wouldn t the
people she has consulted give some information ?
She must have been to people. How else can she have
been condemned ? ”

“ Condemned to what ? Condemned to perpetual
nippers ? Of course she has consulted some of the
big specialists, but she has done it, you may be sure,
in the most clandestine manner ; and even if it were
224

GLASSES

supposable that they would tell you anything — which
I altogether doubt — you would have great difficulty
in finding out which men they are. Therefore leave
it alone ; never show her what you suspect.”

I even, before he quitted me, asked him to promise
me this. " All right, I promise,” he said gloomily
enough. He was a lover who could tacitly grant the
proposition that there was no limit to the deceit
his loved one was ready to practise : it made so
remarkably little difference. I could see that from
this moment he would be filled with a passionate pity
ever so little qualified by a sense of the girl’s fatuity
and folly. She was always accessible to him — that
I knew ; for if she had told him he was an idiot to
dream she could dream of him, she would have
resented the imputation of having failed to make it
clear that she would always be glad to regard him as a
friend. What were most of her friends — what were
all of them — but repudiated idiots ? I was perfectly
aware that in her conversations and confidences I
myself for instance had a niche in the gallery. As
regards poor Dawling I knew how often he still called
on the Hammond Synges. It was not there but under
the wing of the Floyd-Taylors that her intimacy with
Lord Ifficld most flourished. At all events when, a
week after the visit I have just summarised. Flora’s
name was one morning brought up to me, I jumped at
the conclusion that Dawling had been with her, and
even I fear briefly entertained the thought that he had
broken his word.

225

IX

She left me, after she had been introduced, in no
suspense about her present motive ; she was on the
contrary in a visible fever to enlighten me ; but I
promptly learned that for the alarm with which she
pitiably panted our young man was not accountable.
She had but one thought in the world, and that
thought was for Lord Iffield. I had the strangest,
saddest scene with her, and if it did me no other good
it at least made me at last completely understand
why insidiously, from the first, she had struck me as
a creature of tragedy. In showing me the whole of her
folly it lifted the curtain of her misery. I don’t know
how much she meant to tell me when she came — I
think she had had plans of elaborate misrepresenta-
tion ; at any rate she found it at the end of ten
minutes the simplest way to break down and sob, to
be wretched and true. When she had once begun to
let herself go the movement took her off her feet :
the relief of it was like the cessation of a cramp. She
shared in a word her long secret ; she shifted her sharp
pain. She brought, I confess, tears to my own yes,
tears of helpless tenderness for her helpless poverty.
Her visit, however, was not quite so memorable in
itself as in some of its consequences, the most im-
mediate of which was that I went that afternoon to
see Geoffrey Dawling, who had in those days rooms in
Welbeck Street, where I presented myself at an hour
late enough to warrant the supposition that he might
226

GLASSES

have come in. He had not come in, but he was
expected, and I was invited to enter and wait for him :
a lady, I was informed, was already in his sitting-room.
I hesitated, a little at a loss : it had wildly coursed
through my brain that the lady was perhaps Flora
Saunt. But when I asked if she were young and
remarkably pretty I received so significant a “No,
sir ! ” that 1 risked an advance and after a minute in
this manner found myself, to my astonishment, face
to face with Mrs. Meldrum.

“Oh, you dear thing,” she exclaimed, “I’m
delighted to see you : you spare me another compro-
mising demarche ! But for this I should have called
on you also. Know the worst at once : if you see
me here it’s at least deliberate — it’s planned, plotted,
shameless. I came up on purpose to see him ; upon
my word. I’m in love with him. Why, if you valued
my peace of mind, did you let him, the other day at
Folkestone, dawn upon my delighted eyes ? I took
there in half an hour the most extraordinary fancy to
him. With a perfect sense of everything that can be
urged against him, I find him none the less the very
pearl of men. However, I haven’t come up to declare
my passion — I’ve come to bring him news that will
interest him much more. Above all I've come to
urge upon him to be careful.”

“ About Flora Saunt ? ”

“ About what he says and does : he must be as
still as a mouse ! She’s at last really engaged.”

“ But it’s a tremendous secret ? ” I was moved
to merriment.

“ Precisely : she telegraphed me this noon, and
spent another shilling to tell me that not a creature
in the world is yet to know it.”

“ She had better have spent it to tell you that she
had just passed an hour with the creature you see
before you.”

227

GLASSES

“ She has just passed an hour with every one in
the place ! " Mrs. Meldrum cried. “ They've vital
reasons, she wired, for it's not coming out for a month.
Then it will be formally announced, but meanwhile
her happiness is delirious. I daresay Mr. Dawling
already knows, and he may, as it's nearly seven o'clock,
have jumped off London Bridge ; but an effect of the
talk I had with him the other day was to make me, on
receipt of my telegram, feel it to be my duty to warn
him in person against taking action, as it were, on the
horrid certitude which I could see he carried away
with him. I had added somehow to that certitude.
He told me what you had told him you had seen in
your shop."

. Mrs. Meldrum, I perceived, had come to Welbeck
Street on an errand identical with my own — a circum-
stance indicating her rare sagacity, inasmuch as
her ground for undertaking it was a very different
thing from what Flora's wonderful visit had made of
mine. I remarked to her that what I had seen in the
shop was sufficiently striking, but that I had seen a
great deal more that morning in my studio. " In
short,” I said, "I’ve seen everything."

She was mystified. “ Everything ? "

" The poor creature is under the darkest of clouds.
Oh, she came to triumph, but she remained to talk
something approaching to sense ! She put herself
completely in my hands — she does me the honour to
intimate that of all her friends I’m the most dis-
interested. After she had announced to m j that
Lord Iffield was bound hands and feet and that for
the present I was absolutely the only person in the
secret, she arrived at her real business. She had had
a suspicion of me ever since the day, at Folkestone, I
asked her for the truth about her eyes. The truth is
what you and 1 both guessed. She has no end of a
danger hanging over her."

228

GLASSES

“ But from what cause ? I, who by God’s mercy
have kept mine, know everything that can be known
about eyes,” said Mrs. Meldrum.

" She might have kept hers if she had profited by
God’s mercy, if she had done in time, done years ago,
what was imperatively ordered her ; if she hadn’t
in fine been cursed with the loveliness that was to
make her behaviour a thing of fable. She may keep
them still if she’ll sacrifice — and after all so little —
that purely superficial charm. She must do as you’ve
done ; she must wear, dear lady, what you wear ! ”

What my companion wore glittered for the moment
like a melon-frame in August. “ Heaven forgive her
— now I understand ! ” She turned pale.

But I wasn’t afraid of the effect on her good nature
of her thus seeing, through her great goggles, why it
had always been that Flora held her at such a distance.
“ I can't tell you,” I said, “ from what special affec-
tion, what state of the eye, her danger proceeds :
that’s the one thing she succeeded this morning in
keeping from me. She knows it herself perfectly ;
she has had the best advice in Europe. ‘ It’s a thing
that's awful, simply awful ’ — that was the only
account she would give me. Year before last, while
she was at Boulogne, she went for three days with Mrs.
Floyd-Taylor to Paris. She there surreptitiously con-
sulted the greatest man — even Mrs. Floyd-Taylor
doesn’t know. Last autumn, in Germany, she did
the same. ‘ First put on certain special spectacles
with a straight bar in the middle : then we’ll talk ’
— that’s practically what they say. What she says
is that she’ll put on anything in nature when she’s
married, but that she must get married first. She
has always meant to do everything as soon as she’s
married. Then and then only she’ll be safe. How
will any one ever look at her if she makes herself a
fright ? How could she ever have got engaged if she
229

GLASSES

had made herself a fright from the first ? It’s no use
to insist that with her beauty she can never be a
fright. She said to me this morning, poor girl, the
most characteristic, the most harrowing things. * My
face is all I have — and such a face ! I knew from the
first I could do anything with it. But I needed it all
— I need it still, every exquisite inch of it. It isn’t
as if I had a figure or anything else. Oh, if God had
only given me a figure too, I don’t say ! Yes, with
a figure, a really good one, like Fanny Floyd-Taylor’s,
who's hideous, I’d have risked plain glasses. Que
voulez-vous ? No one is perfect.’ She says she still
has money left, but I don’t believe a word of it. She
has been speculating on her impunity, on the idea that
her danger would hold off : she has literally been
running a race with it. Her theory has been, as you
from the first so clearly saw, that she'd get in ahead.
She swears to me that though the ' bar ’ is too cruel
she wears when she’s alone what she has been ordered
to wear. But when the deuce is she alone ? It's her-
self of course that she has swindled worst : she has put
herself off, so insanely that even her vanity but half
accounts for it, with little inadequate concessions,
little false measures and preposterous evasions and
childish hopes. Her great terror is now that Iffield,
who already has suspicions, who has found out her
pince-nez but whom she has beguiled with some un-
blushing hocus-pocus, may discover the dreadful
facts ; and the essence of what she wanted this morn-
ing was in that interest to square me, to get me to
deny indignantly and authoritatively (for isn’t she my
‘ favourite sitter * ?) that she has anything whatever
the matter with any part of her. She sobbed, she
‘ went on,’ she entreated ; after we got talking her
extraordinary nerve left her and she showed me what
she has been through — showed me also all her terror
of the harm I could do her. ‘ Wait till I'm married !

230

GLASSES

wait till I’m married ! ' She took hold of me, she
almost sank on her knees. It seems to me highly
immoral, one's participation in her fraud ; but there’s
no doubt that she must be married : I don't know what
I don’t see behind it ! Therefore," I wound up,
"•Dawling must keep his hands off."

Mrs. Mcldrum had held her breath ; she exhaled a
long moan. " Well, that’s exactly what I came here
to tell him.”

“ Then here he is." Our unconscious host had just
opened the door. Immensely startled at finding us
he turned a frightened look from one to the other, as
if to guess what disaster we were there to announce or
avert.

Mrs. Meldrum, on the spot, was all gaiety. " I’ve
come to return your sweet visit. Ah,” she laughed,
“ I mean to keep up the acquaintance ! "

" Do — do,” he murmured mechanically and ab-
sently, continuing to look at us. Then abruptly he
broke out : “ He’s going to marry her.”

I was surprised. "You already know ? ”

He had had in his hand an evening newspaper ;
he tossed it down on the table. " It’s in that.”

" Published — already ? ” I was still more sur-
prised.

" Oh, Flora can’t keep a secret ! ” Mrs. Meldrum
humorously declared. She went up to poor Dawling
and laid a motherly hand upon him. " It’s all right
— it's just as it ought to be : don't think about her ever
any more.” Then as he met this adjuration with a
dismal stare in which the thought of her was as abnor-
mally vivid as the colour of the pupil, the excellent
woman put up her funny face and tenderly kissed him
on the cheek.

231

X

I have spoken of these reminiscences as of a row of
coloured beads, and I confess that as I continue to
straighten out my chaplet I a*m rather proud of the
comparison. The beads are all there, as I said —
they slip along the string in their small, smooth round-
ness. Geoffrey Dawling accepted like a gentleman
the event his evening paper had proclaimed ; in view
of which I snatched a moment to murmur him a hint
to offer Mrs. Meldrum his hand. He returned me a
heavy head-shake, and I judged that marriage would
henceforth strike him very much as the traffic of the
street may strike some poor incurable at the window
of an hospital. Circumstances arising at this time
promptly led to my making an absence from England,
and circumstances already existing offered him a solid
basis for similar action. He had after all the usual
resource of a Briton — he could take to his boats. He
started on a journey round the globe, and I was left
with nothing but my inference as to what might have
happened. Later observation, however, only con-
firmed my belief that if at any time during the couple
of months that followed Flora S aunt’s brilliant engage-
ment he had made up, as they say, to the good lady
of Folkestone, that good lady would not have pushed
him over the cliff. Strange as she was to behold I
knew of cases in which she had been obliged to ad-
minister that shove. I went to New York to paint a
232

GLASSES

couple of portraits ; but I found, once on the spot,
that I had counted without Chicago, where I .was
invited to blot out this harsh discrimination by the
production of no less than ten. I spent a year in
America and should probably have spent a second
had I not been summoned back to England by alarm-
ing news from my mother. Her strength had failed,
and as soon as I reached London I hurried down to
Folkestone, arriving just at the moment to offer a
welcome to some slight symptom of a rally. She had
been much worse, but she was now a little better ; and
though I found nothing but satisfaction in having
come to her I saw after a few hours that my London
studio, where arrears of work had already met me,
would be my place to await whatever might next
occur. Before returning to town, however, I had every
reason to sally forth in search of Mrs. Meldrum, from
whom, in so many months, 1 had not had a line, and
my view of whom, with the adjacent objects, as I
had left them, had been intercepted by a luxuriant
foreground.

Before I had gained her house I met her, as I
supposed, coming toward me across the down, greeting
me from afar with the familiar twinkle of her great
vitreous badge ; and as it was late in the autumn and
the esplanade was a blank I was free to acknowledge
this signal by cutting a caper on the grass. My
enthusiasm dropped indeed the next moment, for it
had taken me but a few seconds to perceive that the
person thus assaulted had by no means the figure of my
military friend. I felt a shock much greater than any
I should have thought possible as on this person's
drawing near I identified her as poor little Flora Saunt.
At what moment Flora had recognised me belonged to
an order of mysteries over which, it quickly came
home to me, one would never linger again : I could
intensely reflect that once we were face to face it
233

GLASSES

chiefly mattered that I should succeed in looking
still more intensely unastonished. All I saw at first
was the big gold bar crossing each of her lenses, over
which something convex and grotesque, like the eyes
of a large insect, something that now represented her
whole personality, seemed, as out of the orifice of a
prison, to strain forward and press. The face had
shrunk away : it looked smaller, appeared even to
look plain ; it was at all events, so far as the effect on
a spectator was concerned, wholly sacrificed to this
huge apparatus of sight. There was no smile in it,
and she made no motion to take my offered hand.

“ I had no idea you were down here ! ” I exclaimed ;
and I wondered whether she didn’t know me at all or
knew me only by my voice.

“ You thought I was Mrs. Meldrum,” she very
quietly remarked.

It was the quietness itself that made me feel the
necessity of an answer almost violently gay. “ Oh
yes,” I laughed, “ you have a tremendous deal in
common with Mrs. Meldrum ! I’ve just returned to
England after a long absence and I’m on my way to
see her. Won't you come with me ? ” It struck me
that her old reason for keeping clear of our friend was
well disposed of now.

' " I’ve just left her ; I’m staying with her.” She
stood solemnly fixing me with her goggles. “ Would
you like to paint me now ? ” she asked. She seemed
to speak, with intense gravity, from behind a nmsk or
a cage.

There was nothing to do but to treat the question
with the same exuberance. “ It would be a fascinat-
ing little artistic problem ! ” That something was
wrong it was not difficult to perceive ; but a good deal
more than met the eye might be presumed to be wrong
if Flora was under Mrs. Meldrum's roof. I had not for
a year had much time to think of her, but my imagina-
234

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tion had had sufficient warrant for lodging her in more
gilded halls. One of the last things I had heard before
leaving England was that in commemoration of the
new relationship she had gone to stay with Lady
Considine. This had made me take everything else
for granted, and the noisy American world had
deafened my ears to possible contradictions. Her
spectacles were at present a direct contradiction ;
they seemed a negation not only of new relationships
but of every old one as well. I remember nevertheless
that when after a moment she walked beside me on the
grass I found myself nervously hoping she wouldn't
as yet at any rate tell me anything very dreadful ;
so that to stave off this danger I harried her with
questions about Mrs. Meldrum and, without waiting
for replies, became profuse on the subject of my own
doings. My companion was completely silent, and I
felt both as if she were watching my nervousness with
a sort of sinister irony and as if 1 were talking to some
different, strange person. Flora plain and obscure
and soundless was no Flora at all. At Mrs. Meldrum’s
door she turned off with the observation that as there
was certainly a great deal I should have to say to our
friend she had better not go in with me. I looked at
her again — I had been keeping my eyes away from her
— but only to meet her magnified stare. I greatly
desired in truth to see Mrs. Meldrum alone, but there
was something so pitiful in the girl’s predicament that
I hesitated to fall in with this idea of dropping her.
Yet one couldn’t express a compassion without seem-
ing to take too much wretchedness for granted. I
reflected that I must really figure to her as a fool, which
was an entertainment I had never expected to give
her. It rolled over me there for the first time — it has
come back to me since — that there is, strangely, in
very deep misfortune a dignity finer even than in the
most inveterate habit of being all right. I couldn’t
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GLASSES

have to her the manner of treating it as a mere detail
that I was face to face with a part of what, at our last
meeting, we had had such a scene about ; but while
I was trying to think of some manner that I could have
she said quite colourlessly, yet somehow as if she
might never see me again : “ Good-bye. I'm going to
take my walk.”

" All alone ? ”

She looked round the great bleak cliff- top. “ With
whom should I go ? Besides, I like to be alone — for
the present.”

This gave me the glimmer of a vision that she
regarded her disfigurement as temporary, and the
confidence came to me that she would never, for her
happiness, cease to be a creature of illusions. It
enabled me to exclaim, smiling brightly and feeling
indeed idiotic : “ Oh, I shall see you again ! But I
hope you’ll have a very pleasant walk.”

” All my walks arc very pleasant, thank you —
they do me such a lot of good.” She was as quiet as a
mouse, and her words seemed to me stupendous in
their wisdom. “ I take several a day,” she continued.
She might have been an ancient woman responding
with humility at the church door to the patronage of
the parson. “ The more I take the better I feel. I’m
ordered by the doctors to keep all the while in the air
and go in for plenty of exercise. It keeps up my
general health, you know, and if that goes on improv-
ing as it has lately done everything will soon be all
right. All that was the matter with me befor ' -and
always ; it was too reckless ! — was that I neglected
my general health. It acts directly on the state of the
particular organ. So I’m going three miles.”

I grinned at her from the doorstep while Mrs.
Meldrum’s maid stood there to admit me. “ Oh, I’m
so glad,” I said, looking at her as she paced away with
the pretty flutter she had kept and remembering

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the day when, while she rejoined Lord Iffield, I had
indulged in the same observation. Her air of assur-
ance was on this occasion not less than it had been on
that ; but I recalled that she had then struck me as
marching off to her doom. Was she really now march-
ing away from it ?

237

XI

As soon as I saw Mrs. Meldrum I broke out to
her. “ Is there anything in it ? Is her general
health ? ”

Mrs. Meldrum interrupted me with her great
amused blare. " You’ve already seen her and she
has told you her wondrous tale ? What’s ‘ in it ' is
what has been in everything she has ever done — the
most comical, tragical belief in herself. She thinks
she’s doing a ‘ cure.' ”

“ And what does her husband think ? ”

“ Her husband ? What husband ? ”

“ Hasn’t she then married Lord Iffield ? ”

“ Vous-en-eles Id P ” cried my hostess. “ He be-
haved like a regular beast.”

.“ How should I know ? You never wrote to me.”
Mrs. Meldrum hesitated, covering me with what
poor Flora called the particular organ. ” No, I didn’t
write to you ; and I abstained on purpose. If I didn't
I thought you mightn't, over there, hear wh?i had
happened. If you should hear I was afraid you ^ould
stir up Mr. Dawling.”

“ Stir him up ? ”

“ Urge him to fly to the rescue ; write out to him
that there was another chance for him.”

“ I wouldn’t have done it,” I said:

“ Well,” Mrs. Meldrum replied, “ it was not my
business to give you an opportunity.”

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GLASSES

“In short you were afraid of it.”

Again she hesitated and though it may have been
only my fancy I thought she considerably reddened.
At all events she laughed out. Then “ I was afraid of
it ! ” she very honestly answered.

“ But doesn’t he know ? Has he given no sign ? ”

“ Every sign in life — he came straight back to her.
He did everything to get her to listen to him ; but
she hasn't the smallest idea of it.”

“ Has he seen her as she is now ? ” I presently and
just a trifle awkwardly inquired.

“ Indeed he has, and borne it like a hero. He told
me all about it.”

“ How much you’ve all been through ! ” I ventured
to ejaculate. “ Then what has become of him ? ”

“ He's at home in Hampshire. He has got back
his old place and I believe by this time his old sisters.
It's not half a bad little place.”

“Yet its attractions say nothing to Flora ? ”

“ Oh, Flora’s by no means on her back ! ” my
interlocutress laughed.

“ She’s not on her back because she’s on yours.
Have you got her for the rest of your life ? ”

Once more my hostess genially glared at me.
“ Did she tell you how much the Hammond Synges
have kindly left her to live on ? Not quite eighty
pounds a year.”

“ That's a good deal, but it won't pay the oculist.
What was it that at last induced her to submit to
him ? "

“ Her general collapse after that brute of an
Ifiield’s rupture. She cried her eyes out — she passed
through a horror of black darkness. Then came a
gleam of light, and the light appears to have broadened.
She went into goggles as repentant Magdalens go into
the Catholic Church.”

“ Yet you don’t think she'll be saved ? ”

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GLASSES

“ She thinks she will — that’s all I can tell you.
There’s no doubt that when once she brought herself
to accept her real remedy, as she calls it, she began
to enjoy a relief that she had never known. That
feeling, very new and in spite of what she pays for
it most refreshing, has given her something to hold
on by, begotten in her foolish little mind a belief
that, as she says, she’s on the mend and that in the
course of time, if she leads a tremendously healthy
life, she’ll be able to take off her muzzle and become
as dangerous again as ever. It keeps her going.”

“ And what keeps you ? You’re good until the
parties begin again.”

“ Oh, she doesn’t object to me now ! ” smiled Mrs.
Meldrum. “ I’m going to take her abroad ; we shall
be a pretty pair." I was struck with this energy
and after a moment I inquired the reason of it. “ It's
to divert her mind,” my friend replied, reddening
again, I thought, a little. "We shall go next week :
I’ve only waited, to start, to see how your mother
would be.” I expressed to her hereupon my sense
of her extraordinary merit and also that of the in-
conceivability of Flora’s fancying herself still in a
situation not to jump at the chance of marrying a
man like Dawling. " She says he's too ugly ; she
says he’s too dreary ; she says in fact he’s ‘ nobody,’ ”
Mrs. Meldrum pursued. " She says above all that
he’s not ‘ her own sort.’ She doesn’t deny that he’s
good, but she insists on the fact that he's grotesque.
He's quite the last person .she would ever drea^n of.”
I was almost disposed on hearing this to protest that
if the girl had so little proper feeling her noble suitor
had perhaps served her right ; but after a while my
curiosity as to just how her noble suitor had served
her got the better of that emotion, and I asked a
question or two which led my companion again to
apply to him the invidious epithet I have already
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GLASSES

quoted. What had happened was simply that Flora
had at the eleventh hour broken down in the attempt
to put him oft with an uncandid account of her in-
firmity and that his lordship’s interest in her had not
been proof against the discovery of the way she had
practised on him. Her dissimulation, he was obliged
to perceive, had been infernally deep. The future in
short assumed a new complexion for him when looked
at through the grim glasses of a bride who, as he had
said to some one, couldn’t really, when you came to
find out, see her hand before her face. He had con-
ducted himself like any other jockeyed customer — he
had returned the animal as unsound. He had backed
out in his own way, giving the business, by some
sharp shuffle, such a turn as to make the rupture
ostensibly Flora’s, but he had none the less remorse-
lessly and basely backed out. He had cared for her
lovely face, cared for it in the amused and haunted
way it had been her poor little delusive gift to make
men care ; and her lovely face, damn it, with the
monstrous gear she had begun to rig upon it, was
just what had let him in. He had in the judgement
of his family done everything that could be expected
of him ; he had made — Mrs. Meldrum had herself
seen the letter — a " handsome ” offer of pecuniary
compensation. Oh, if Flora, with her incredible
buoyancy, was in a manner on her feet again now,
it was not that she had not for weeks and weeks been
prone in the dust. Strange were the humiliations,
the prostrations it was given to some natures to
survive. That Flora had survived was perhaps after
all a sort of sign that she was reserved for some final
mercy. “ But she has been in the abysses at any
rate,” said Mrs. Meldrum, “ and I really don’t think
I can tell you what pulled her through.”

" I think I can tell you," I said. “ What in the
world but Mrs. Meldrum ? ”

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GLASSES

At the end of an hour Flora had not come in, and
I was obliged to announce that I should have but
time to reach the station, where, in charge of my
mother’s servant, I was to find my luggage. Mrs.
Meldrum put before me the question of waiting till a
later train, so as not to lose our young lady ; but I
confess I gave this alternative a consideration less
profound than I pretended. Somehow I didn’t care
if I did lose our young lady. Now that I knew the
worst that had befallen her it struck me still less as
possible to meet her on the ground of condolence ;
and with the melancholy aspect she wore to me what
other ground was left ? I lost her, but I caught my
train. In truth she was so changed that one hated
to see it ; and now that she was in charitable hands
one didn’t feel compelled to make great efforts. I
had studied her face for a particular beauty ; I had
lived with that beauty and reproduced it ; but I knew
what belonged to my trade well enough to be sure it
was gone for ever.

242

XII

I was soon called back to Folkestone ; but Mrs.
Meldrum and her young friend had already left
England, finding to that end every convenience on
the spot and not having had to come up to town.
My thoughts, however, were so painfully engaged
there that I should in any case have had little atten-
tion for them : the event occurred that was to bring
my series of visits to a close. When this high tide
had ebbed I returned to America and to my inter-
rupted work, which had opened out on such a scale
that, with a deep plunge into a great chance, I was
three good years in rising again to the surface. There
are nymphs and naiads, moreover, in the American
depths : they may have had something to do with
the duration of my dive. I mention them to account
for a grave misdemeanor — the fact that after the first
year I rudely neglected Mrs. Meldrum. She had
written to me from Florence after my mother’s death
and had mentioned in a postscript that in our young
lady’s calculations the lowest numbers were now
Italian counts. This was a good omen, and if in
subsequent letters there was no news of a sequel I
was content to accept small things and to believe
that grave tidings,^ should there be any, would come
to me in due course. The gravity of what might
happen to a featherweight became indeed with time
and distance less appreciable, and I was not without
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an impression that Mrs. Meldrum, whose sense of
proportion was not the least of her merits, had no
idea of boring the world with the ups and downs of
her pensioner. The poor girl grew dusky and dim,
a small fitful memory, a regret tempered by the com-
fortable consciousness of how kind Mrs. Meldrum
would always be to her. I was professionally more
preoccupied than I had ever been, and I had swarms
of pretty faces in my eyes and a chorus of high voices
in my ears. Geoffrey Dawling had on his return to
England written me two or three letters : his last
information had been that he was going into the
figures of rural illiteracy. I was delighted to receive
it and had no doubt that if he should go into figures
they would, as they are said to be able to prove any-
thing, prove at least that my advice was sound and
that he had wasted time enough. This quickened on
my part another hope, a hope suggested by some
roundabout rumour — I forget how it reached me —
that he was engaged to a girl down in Hampshire.
He turned out not to be, but I felt sure that if only
he went into figures deep enough he would become,
among the girls down in Hampshire or elsewhere, one
of those numerous prizes of battle whose defences are
practically not on the scale of their provocations. I
nursed in short the thought that it was probably open
to him to become one of the types as to which, as the
years go on, frivolous and superficial spectators lose
themselves in the wonder that they ever succeeded
in winning even the least winsome mates. He never
alluded to Flora Saunt ; and there was in his silence
about her, quite as in Mrs. Meldrum’s, an element of
instinctive tact, a brief implication that if you didn't
happen to have been in love with her she was not an
inevitable topic.

Within a week after my return to London I went
to the opera, of which I had always been much of
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a devotee. I arrived too late for the first act of
“ Lohengrin,” but the second was just beginning,
and I gave myself up to it with no more than a
glance at the house. When it was over I treated
myself, with my glass, from my place in the stalls,
to a general survey of the boxes, making doubtless
on their contents the reflexions, pointed by com-
parison, that are most familiar to the wanderer
restored to London. There was a certain propor-
tion of pretty women, but I suddenly became aware
that one of these was far prettier than the others.
This lady, alone in one of the smaller receptacles of
the grand tier and already the aim of fifty tentative
glasses, which she sustained with admirable serenity
— this single exquisite figure, placed in the quarter
furthest removed from my stall, was a person, I
immediately felt, to cause one's curiosity to linger.
Dressed in white, with diamonds in her hair and
pearls on her neck, she had a pale radiance of beauty
which even at that distance made her a distinguished
presence and, with the air that easily attaches to
lonely loveliness in public places, an agreeable mystery.
A mystery, however, she remained to me only for a
minute after I had levelled my glass at her : I feel
to this moment the startled thrill, the shock almost
of joy with which I suddenly encountered in her vague
brightness a rich revival of Flora Saunt. I say a
revival because, to put it crudely, I had on that last
occasion left poor Flora for dead. At present perfectly
alive again, she was altered only, as it were, by resur-
rection. A little older, a little quieter, a little finer
and a good deal fairer, she was simply transfigured by
recovery. Sustained by the reflexion that even re-
covery wouldn’t enable her to distinguish me in the
crowd, I was free to look at her well. Then it was it
came home to me that my vision of her in her great
goggles had been cruelly final. As her beauty was
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GLASSES

all there was of her, that machinery had extinguished
her, and so far as I had thought of her in the interval
I had thought of her as buried in the tomb her stern
specialist had built. With the sense that she had
escaped from it came a lively wish to return to her ;
and if I didn't straightway leave my place and rush
round the theatre and up to her box it was because
I was fixed to the spot some moments longer by the
simple inability to cease looking at her.

She had been from the first of my seeing her
practically motionless, leaning back in her chair with
a kind of thoughtful grace and with her eyes vaguely
directed, as it seemed to me, to one of the boxes on
my side of the house and consequently over my
head and out of my sight. The only movement she
made for some time was to finger with an ungloved
hand and as if with the habit of fondness the row of
pearls on her neck, which my glass showed me to
be large and splendid. Her diamonds and pearls, in
her solitude, mystified me, making me, as she had
had no such brave jewels in the days of the Hammond
Synges, wonder what undreamt-of improvement had
taken place in her fortunes. The ghost of a question
hovered there a moment : could anything so pro-
digious have happened as that on her tested and
proved amendment Lord Iffield had taken her back ?
This could not have occurred without my hearing of
it ; and, moreover, if she had become a person of such
fashion, where was the little court one would natmally
see at her elbow ? Her isolation was puzzling, though
it could easily suggest that she was but momentarily
alone. If she had come with Mrs. Meldrum that lady
would have taken advantage of the interval to pay a
visit to some other box — doubtless the box at which
Flora had just been looking. Mrs. Meldrum didn’t
account for the jewels, but the refreshment of Flora’s
beauty accounted for anything. She presently moved
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GLASSES

her eyes over the house, and I felt them brush me
again like the wings of a dove. I don't know what
quick pleasure flickered into the hope that she would
at last see me. She did see me : she suddenly bent
forward to take up the little double-barrelled ivory
glass that rested on the edge of the box and, to all
appearance, fix me with it. I smiled from my place
straight up at the searching lenses, and after an instant
she dropped them and smiled as straight back at me.
Oh, her smile : it was her old smile, her young smile,
her peculiar smile made perfect ! I instantly left my
stall and hurried off for a nearer view of it ; quite
flushed, I remember, as I went, with the annoyance of
having happened to think of the idiotic way I had
tried to paint her. Poor Iffleld with his sample of that
error, and still poorer Dawling in particular with his !
I hadn’t touched her, I was professionally humiliated,
and as the attendant in the lobby opened her box
for me I felt that the very first thing 1 should have
to say to her would be that she must absolutely sit to
me again.

247

XIII

She gave me the smile once more as over her shoulder,
from her chair, she turned her face to me. “ Here you
are again ! ” she exclaimed with her disglovcd hand
put up a little backward for me to take. I dropped
into a chair just behind her and, having taken it and
noted that one of the curtains of the box would make
the demonstration sufficiently private, bent my lips
over it and impressed them on its finger-tips. It was
given me, however, to my astonishment, to feel next
that all the privacy in the world couldn't have sufficed
to mitigate the start with which she greeted this free
application of my moustache : the blood had jumped
to her face, she quickly recovered her hand and jerked
at me, twisting herself round, a vacant, challenging
stare. During the next few instants several extra-
ordinary things happened, the first of which was that
now I was close to them the eyes of loveliness I had
come up to look into didn’t show at all the conscious
light I had just been pleased to see them flash across
the house : they showed on the contrary, to my con-
fusion, a strange, sweet blankness, an expre f ^on I
failed to give a meaning to until, without delay, I felt
on my arm, directed to it as if instantly to efface the
effect of her start, the grasp of the hand she had
impulsively snatched from me. It was the irre-
pressible question in this grasp that stopped on my
lips all sound of salutation. She had mistaken my
entrance for that of another person, a pair of lips
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GLASSES

without a moustache. She was feeling me to see who
I was ! With the perception of this and of her not
seeing me I sat gaping at her and at the wild word that
didn't come, the right word to express or to disguise
my stupefaction. What was the right word to com-
memorate one’s sudden discovery, at the very moment
too at which one had been most encouraged to count
on better things, that one’s dear old friend had gone
blind ? Before the answer to this question dropped
upon me — and the moving moments, though few,
seemed many — I heard, with the sound of voices, the
click of the attendant’s key on the other side of the
door. Poor Flora heard also, and with the hearing,
still with her hand on my arm, she brightened again
as I had a minute since seen her brighten across the
house : she had the sense of the return of the person
she had taken me for — the person with the right pair
of lips, as to whom I was for that matter much more
in the dark than she. I gasped, but my word had
come : if she had lost her sight it was in this very
loss that she had found again her beauty. I managed
to speak while we were still alone, before her com-
panion had appeared. “ You’re lovelier at this day
than you have ever been in your life ! ” At the sound
of my voice and that of the opening of the door her
excitement broke into audible joy. She sprang up,
recognising me, always holding me, and gleefully cried
to a gentleman who was arrested in the doorway by
the sight of me : " He has come back, he has come
back, and you should have heard what he says of
me I " The gentleman was Geoffrey Dawling, and I
thought it best to let him hear on the spot. “ How
beautiful she is, my dear man — but how extraordinarily
beautiful ! More beautiful at this hour than ever,
ever before ! ”

It gave them almost equal pleasure and made
Dawling blush up to his eyes ; while this in turn
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GLASSES

produced, in spite of deepened astonishment, a
blessed snap of the strain that I had been under for
some moments. I wanted to embrace them both,
and while the opening bars of another scene rose
from the orchestra I almost did embrace Dawling,
whose first emotion on beholding me had visibly and
ever so oddly been a consciousness of guilt. I had
caught him somehow in the act, though that was as
yet all I knew ; but by the time we had sunk noise-
lessly into our chairs again (for the music was supreme,
Wagner passed first) my demonstration ought pretty
well to have given him the limit of the criticism he
had to fear. I myself indeed, while the opera blazed,
was only too afraid he might divine in our silent
closeness the very moral of my optimism, which was
simply the comfort I had gathered from seeing that
if our companion’s beauty lived again her vanity
partook of its life. I had hit on the right note — that
was what eased me off : it drew all pain for the next
half-hour from the sense of the deep darkness in which
the stricken woman sat there. If the music, in that
darkness, happily soared and swelled for her, it beat
its wings in unison with those of a gratified passion.
A great deal came and went between us without pro-
faning the occasion, so that I could feel at the end
of twenty minutes as if I knew almost everything he
might in kindness have to tell me ; knew even why
Flora, while I stared at her from the stalls, had misled
me by the use of ivory and crystal and by appearing
to recognise me and smile. She leaned back m her
chair in luxurious ease : I had from the first become
aware that the way she fingered her pearls was a sharp
image of the wedded state. Nothing of old had
seemed wanting to her assurance ; but I hadn’t then
dreamed of the art with which she would wear that
assurance as a married woman. She had taken him
when everything had failed ; he had taken her when
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GLASSES

she herself had done so. His embarrassed eyes con-
fessed it all, confessed the deep peace he found in it.
They only didn’t tell me why he had not written to
me, nor clear up as yet a minor obscurity. Flora
after a while again lifted the glass from the ledge of
the box and elegantly swept the house with it. Then,
by the mere instinct of her grace, a motion but half
conscious, she inclined her head into the void with
the sketch of a salute, producing, I could see, a
perfect imitation of a response to some homage.
Dawling and I looked at each other again : the tears
came into his eyes. She was playing at perfection
still, and her misfortune only simplified the process.

I recognised that this was as near as I should ever
come, certainly as I should come that night, to press-
ing on her misfortune. Neither of us would name it
more than we were doing then, and Flora would never
name it at all. Little by little I perceived that what
had occurred was, strange as it might appear, the best
thing for her happiness. The question was now only
of her beauty and her being seen and marvelled at :
with Dawling to do for her everything in life her
activity was limited to that. Such an activity was
all within her scope : it asked nothing of her that she
couldn't splendidly give. As from time to time in our
delicate communion she turned her face to me with
the parody of a look I lost none of the signs of its
strange new glory. The expression of the eyes was
a bit of pastel put in by a master’s thumb ; the whole
head, stamped with a sort of showy suffering, had
gained a fineness from what she had passed through.
Yes, Flora was settled for life — nothing could hurt
her further. I foresaw the particular praise she would
mostly incur — she would be incomparably “ interest-
ing.” She would charm with her pathos more even
than she had charmed with her pleasure. For herself
above all she was fixed for ever, rescued from all

251

GLASSES

change and ransomed from all doubt. Her old
certainties, her old vanities were justified and sancti-
fied, and in the darkness that had closed upon her
one object remained clear. That object, as unfading
as a mosaic mask, was fortunately the loveliest she
could possibly look upon. The greatest blessing of all
was, of course, that Dawling thought so. Her future
was ruled with the straightest line, and so for that
matter was his. There were two facts to which before
I left my friends I gave time to sink into my spirit.
One of them was that he had changed by some process
as effective as Flora’s change ; had been simplified
somehow into service as she had been simplified into
success. He was such a picture of inspired inter-
vention as I had never yet encountered : he would
exist henceforth for the sole purpose of rendering un-
necessary, or rather impossible, any reference even
on her own part to his wife’s infirmity. Oh yes, how
little desire he would ever give me to refer to it ! He
principally after a while made me feel — and this was
my second lesson — that, good-natured as he was, my
being there to see it all oppressed him ; so that by
the time the act ended I recognised that I too had
filled out my hour. Dawling remembered things ;
I, think he caught in my very face the irony of old
judgements : they made him thresh about in his chair.
I said to Flora as I took leave of her that I would
come to see her ; but I may mention that I never
went. I’ll go to-morrow if I hear she wants me ; but
what in the world can she ever want ? As I quitted
them I laid my hand on Dawling’s arm and drew him
for a moment into the lobby.

“ Why did you never write to me of your
marriage ? ”

He smiled uncomfortably, showing his long yellow
teeth and something more. " I don’t know — the
whole thing gave me such a tremendous lot to do.”
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GLASSES

This was the first dishonest speech I had heard
him make : he really hadn’t written to me because
he had an idea I would think him a still bigger fool
than before. I didn’t insist, but I tried there, in the
lobby, so far as a pressure of his hand could serve
me, to give him a notion of what I thought him.
“ I can’t at any rate make out,” I said, “ why I didn’t
hear from Mrs. Meldrum.”

“ She didn’t write to you ? ”

“ Never a word. What has become of her ? ”

“ I think she’s at Folkestone,” Dawling returned ;
“ but I'm sorry to say that practically she has ceased
to see us.”

“You haven’t quarrelled with her ? ”

“ How could wc ? Think of all we owe her. At
the time of our marriage, and for months before, she
did everything for us : I don’t know how we should
have managed without her. But since then she has
never been near us and has given us rather markedly
little encouragement to try and keep up our relations
with her.”

I was struck with this, though of course I admit
I am struck with all sorts of things. “ Well,” I said
after a moment, “ even if I could imagine a reason
for that attitude it wouldn’t explain why she shouldn’t
have taken account of my natural interest.”

“ Just so.” Dawling’s face was a windowless
wall. He could contribute nothing to the mystery,
and, quitting him, I carried it away. It was not till
I went down to see Mrs. Meldrum that it was really
dispelled. She didn’t want to hear of them or to
talk of them, not a bit, and it was just in the same
spirit that she hadn’t wanted to write of them. She
had done everything in the world for them, but now,
thank heaven, the hard business was over. After I
had taken this in, which I was quick to do, we quite
avoided the subject. She simply couldn’t bear it.

253

THE GREAT CONDITION

255

I

“ Ah there, confound it ! ” said Bertram Braddle
when he had once more frowned, so far as he could
frown, over his telegram. " I must catch the train
if I’m to have my morning clear in town. And it’s a
most abominable nuisance ! ”

“ Do you mean on account of — a — her ? ” asked,
after a minute’s silent sympathy, the friend to whom
— in the hall of the hotel, still bestrewn with the
appurtenances of the newly disembarked — he had
thus querulously addressed himself.

He looked hard for an instant at Henry Chilvcr,
but the hardness was not all produced by Chilver’s
question. His annoyance at not being able to spend
his night at Liverpool was visibly the greatest that
such a privation can be conceived as producing, and
might have seemed indeed to transcend the limits of
its occasion. “ I promised her the second day out
that, no matter at what hour we should get in, I
would see her up to London and save her having to
take a step by herself.”

“ And you piled up the assurance ” — Chilver
somewhat irrelevantly laughed — “ with each suc-
cessive day ! ”

“ Naturally — for what is there to do between New
York and Queenstown but pile up ? And now, with
this pistol at my head ” — crumpling the telegram
with an angry fist, he tossed it into the wide public

257 s

THE GREAT CONDITION

chimney-place — " I leave her to scramble through
to-morrow as she can. She has to go on to Brighton

and she doesn’t know ” And Braddle’s quickened

sense of the perversity of things dropped to a moment’s
helpless communion with the aggravating face of his
watch.

" She doesn't know ? ” his friend conscien-

tiously echoed.

" Oh, she doesn’t know anything ! Should you
say it’s too late to ask for a word with her ? ”

Chilver, with his eyes on the big hotel-clock,
wondered. “ Lateish — isn’t it ? — when she must
have been gone this quarter of an hour to her room.”

" Yes, I'm bound to say she has managed that for
herself ! ” and Braddlc stuck back his watch. " So
that, as I haven’t time to write, there's nothing for
me but to wire her — ever so apologetically — the first
thing in the morning from town.”

“ Surely — as for the steamer special there are now
only about five minutes left.”

“ Good then — I join you,” said Braddlc with a sigh
of submission. “ But where’s the brute who took
my things ? Yours went straight to the station ? ”

“ No — they’re still out there on the cab from which
I set you down. And there’s your chap with your
stuff ” — Chilver's eye had just caught the man — ” he’s
ramming it into the lift. Collar him before it goes
up.” Bertram Braddlc, on this, sprang forward in
time ; then while at an office-window that opened
into an inner sanctuary he explained his case to a
neatly fitted priestess whose cold eyes looked straight
through nonsense, putting it before her that he should
after all not require the room he had telegraphed for,
his companion only turned uneasily about at a dis-
tance and made no approach to the arrested four-
wheeler that, at the dock, had received both the
gentlemen and their effects. “I join you — I join
258

THE GREAT CONDITION

you,” Braddle repeated as he brought back his larger
share of these.

Chilver appeared meanwhile to have found freedom
of mind for a decision. “ But, my dear fellow, shall
I too then go ? ”

Braddle stared. " Why, I thought you so emi-
nently had to.”

“ Not if I can be of any use to you. I mean by
stopping over and offering my — I admit very inferior
—aid ”

“ To Mrs. Damerel ? ” Braddle took in his friend’s
sudden and — as it presented itself — singularly obliging
change of plan. " All, you want to be of use to
her ? ”*

“ Only if it will take her off your mind till you see
her again. I don’t mind telling you now,” Chilver
courageously continued, ” that I’m not positively in
such a hurry. I said I'd catch the train because I
thought you wanted to be alone with her.”

The young men stood there now a trifle rigidly,
but very expressively, face to face : Bertram Braddle,
the younger but much the taller, smooth, handsome
and heavy, with the composition of his dress so
elaborately informal, his pleasant monocular scowl
so religiously fixed, his hat so despairingly tilted, and
his usual air — innocent enough, however — of looking
down from some height still greater-r-as every one
knew about the rich, the bloated Braddles — than
that of his fine stature ; Chilver, slight and compara-
tively colourless, rather sharp than bright, but with
— in spite of a happy brown moustache, scantily
professional, but envied by the man whose large,
empty, sunny face needed, as some one had said, a
little planting — no particular " looks ” save those that
dwelt in his intelligent eyes. " And what then did
you think I wanted to do ? ”

“ Exactly what you say. To present yourself in
259

THE GREAT CONDITION

a taking light — to deepen the impression you’ve been
at so much trouble to make. But if you don't care

for my stopping ! ” And tossing away the end

of his cigarette with a gesture of good-humoured
renouncement, Chilver moved across the marble slabs
to the draughty portal that kept swinging from the
street.

There were porters, travellers, other impediments
in his way, and this gave Braddle an appreciable time
to watch his receding back before it disappeared ;
the prompt consequence of which was an “ I say,
Chilver ! ” launched after him sharply enough to
make him turn round before passing out. The
speaker had not otherwise stirred, and the interval
of space doubtless took something from the straight-
ness of their further mute communication. This
interval, the next minute, as Chilver failed to return,
Braddle diminished by gaining the door in company
with a porter whose arm he had seized on the way.
“ Take this gentleman's things off the cab and put
on mine.” Then as he turned to his friend : “Go
and tell the young woman there that you’ll have the
room I’ve given up.”

Chilver laid upon him a hand still interrogative
enough not to be too grateful. ” Arc you very sure
it’s all right ? ”

Braddle's face simply followed for a moment, in
the outer lamplight, the progress of the operation he
had decreed. “ Do you think I’m going to illow you
to make out that I’m afraid ? ”

“ Well, my dear chap, why shouldn't you be ? ”
Henry Chilver, with this retort, did nothing ; he only,
with his hands in his pockets, let the porter and the
cabman bestir themselves. “ I simply wanted to be
civil.”

“ Oh, I’ll risk it ! ” said the younger man with a free
enough laugh. " Be awfully attentive, you know.”

260

THE GREAT CONDITION

“ Of course it won’t be anything like the same thing
to her Chilvcr went on.

“ Of course not, but explain. Tell her I'm wiring,
writing. Do everything, in short. Good-bye.”

“ Good-bye, good-bye, old man.” And Chilver
went down with him to the rearranged cab. “ So
many thanks.”

“ Thanks ? ” said the other as he got in.

“ I mean because I’m — hang it ! — just tired enough
to be glad to go to bed.”

“ Oh ! ” came rather dryly from Braddle out of
the window of the cab.

“ Shan’t I go with you to the station ? ” his com-
panion asked.

" Dear no — much obliged ! "

“ Well, you shall have my report ! ” Chilver
continued.

“ Ah, I shall have Mrs. Damerel’s ! ” Braddle
answered as the cab drove away.

261

II

The fatigue of which Chilver had spoken sought
relief for the time in a good deal of rather pointless
activity, and it was not for an hour after he had taken
possession of his room that he lay down to close his
eyes. He moved, before this, in his narrow limits,
up and down and to and fro ; he left his smaller
portmanteau gaping but unpacked ; he fumbled in
his dressing-bag for a book and dropped with it into
a chair. But when in this position he let his attention
very soon wander and his lids finally droop, it w r as
not at all that sleep had overcome him. Something
had overcome him, on the contrary, that, a quarter
of an hour later, made him jump up and consult the
watch he had transferred from his pocket to his bed-
side as his only step toward undressing. He quickly
restored it to its receptacle and, catching up his hat,
left the room and took his course downstairs. Here,
for another quarter of an hour, he wandered, waited,
looked about. He had been rather positive to his
comrade on the question of Mrs. Damerel's possible,
impossible, reappearance ; but his movements, for
some time, could have been explained only by an
unquenched imagination that, late though the hour,
she might “ nip ” down — so in fact he mentally
phrased it : well, for what ? To indulge — it was
conceivable — an appetite unappeased by the five and
twenty meals (Braddle had seen them all served to her
262

THE GREAT CONDITION

on deck) of the rapid voyage. He kept glancing into
the irresponsive coffee-room and peeping through
the glass door of a smaller blank, bright apartment
in which a lonely, ugly lady, hatted and coated and
hugging a bundle of shawls, sat glaring into space
with an anxiety of her own. When at last he returned
to his room, however, it was quite with the recog-
nition that such a person as Mrs. Damerel wouldn’t
at all at that hour be knocking about the hotel. On
the other hand — his vigil still encouraged the reflexion
— what appeared less like her than her giving them
the slip, on their all leaving the dock, so uncere-
moniously ; making her independent dash for a good
room at the inn the very moment the Customs people
had passed her luggage ? It was perhaps the
fatiguing futility of this question that at last sent
Henry Chilver to bed and to sleep.

That restorative proved the next morning to have
considerably cleared and settled his consciousness.
He found himself immediately aware of being in no
position to say what was or was not “ like ” Mrs.
Damerel. He knew as little about her as Braddle
knew, and it was his conviction that Braddle’s
ignorance had kept regular step with all the rest of
the conditions. These conditions were, to begin with,
that, seated next her at table for the very first repast,
Bertram had struck up with her a friendship of which
the leaps and bounds were, in the social, the senti-
mental sphere, not less remarkable than those with
which the great hurrying ship took its way through
the sea. They were, further, that, unlike all the
other women, so numerous and, in the fine weather,
so “ chatty,” she had succeeded in incurring the
acquaintance of nobody in the immense company
but themselves. Three or four men had more or
less made up to her, but with none of the ladies had
she found it inevitable to exchange, to his observation
263

THE GREAT CONDITION

— and oh, his attention, at least, had been deep ! —
three words. The great fact above all had been — as
it now glimmered back to him — that he had studied
her not so much in her own demonstrations, which
had been few and passive, as in those of his absolutely
alienated companion. He had been reduced to con-
templation resignedly remote, since Braddle now
monopolised her, and had thus seen her largely
through his surprise at the constancy of Braddlc’s
interest. The affinities hitherto — in other cases —
recognised by his friend he had generally made out
as of an order much less fine. There were lots of
women on the ship who might easily have been sup-
posed to be a good deal more his affair. Not one of
them had, however, by any perversity corresponding
with that of the connexion under his eyes, become
in any degree Chilver’s own. He had the feeling, on
the huge crowded boat, of making the voyage in
singular solitude, a solitude mitigated only by the
amusement of finding Braddle so “ mashed ” and of
wondering what would come of it. Much less, up to
that moment, had come of the general American
exposure than each, on their sailing westward for the
more and more prescribed near view, had freely fore-
told to the other as the least they were likely to get
off with. The near view of the big queer country
had at last, this summer, imposed itself : so many
other men had got it and were making it, in talk, not
only a convenience but a good deal of a nuisance,
that it appeared to have become, defensively, as
necessary as the electric light in the flat one might
wish to let ; as to which the two friends, after their
ten bustling weeks, had now in fact grown to feel
that they could press the American button with the
best.

But they had been on the whole — Chilver at least
had been— -disappointed in the celebrated (and were
264

THE GREAT CONDITION

they not all, in the United States, celebrated ?) native
women. He didn’t quite know what he had expected :
something or other, at any rate, that had not taken
place. He felt as if he had carried over in his port-
manteau a court-suit or a wedding-garment and were
bringing it back untouched, unfolded, in creases un-
relieved and almost painfully aware of themselves.
They had taken lots of letters — most of them, some
fellow who knew had told them, awfully good ones ;
they had been to Washington and Boston and New-
port and Mount Desert, walking round and round
the vociferous whirlpool, but neither tumbling in nor
feeling at any moment, as it appeared, at all danger-
ously dizzy ; so that here — in relation to Mrs.
Damerel — was the oddity of an impression vertigin-
ous only after everything might have been supposed
to be well over. This lady was the first female
American they had met, of almost any age, who was
not celebrated ; yet she was the one who suggested
most to Chilver something he now imagined himself
originally to have gone forth expecting to feel. She
was a person to whom they couldn’t possibly have
had a letter ; she had never in her life been to New-
port ; she was on her way to England for the first
time ; she was, in short, most inconsistently, though
indeed quite unblushingly, obscure. She was only
charming in a new way. It was newer, somehow,
than any of the others that were so fresh. Yet what
should he call it if he were trying — in a foolish flight
of analysis to somebody else — to describe it ? When
he asked himself this he was verily brought, from one
thing to another, to recognising that it was probably
in fact as old as the hills. All that was new in it was
that he was in love with her ; and moreover, without
in the least knowing her, so completely, so heroically,
from the point of honour, had he, for all the six days,
left her to poor Braddle. Well, if he should now take
265

THE GREAT CONDITION

her up to town he would be a little less ignorant. He
liked, naturally, to think he should be of use to her,
but he flattered himself he kept the point of honour
well in view. To Braddle — given Braddle’s uneasi-
ness — he should be equally of use.

266

Ill

This last appearance was in a short time abundantly
confirmed ; not only when, in London, after the
discharge of his mission, he submitted to his friend
a detailed account of that happy transaction, but
ten days later, on Braddle’s own return from Brighton,
where he had promptly put in a week — a week of
which, visibly, the sole and irresistible motive was
Mrs. Damercl, established there as a sequel to Chilver’s
attendance on her from Liverpool to Euston and
from Euston, within the hour— so immediately that
she got off before her other friend had had time to
turn up at either station — to Victoria. This other
friend passed in London, while at Brighton, the
inside of a day, rapping with a familiar stick — at
an hour supposedly not dedicated, in those grey
courts, to profane speculation — the door of the dingy
Temple chambers in which, after the most extravagant
holiday of his life, Henry Chilvcr had found it salutary
to sit and imagine himself “ reading." But Braddle
had always been, portentously, a person of free
mornings — his nominal occupation that of looking
after his father’s " interests," and his actual that of
spending, though quite without scandal, this person-
age’s money, of which, luckily, there seemed an
abundance. What came from him on this occasion
connected itself with something that had passed
between them on their previous meeting, the one
267

THE GREAT CONDITION

immediately following the incident at Liverpool.
Chilver had at that time been rather surprised to
hear his friend suddenly bring out : “You don't
then think there’s anything ‘ off ' about her ? ”

“ Off ? ” Chilver could at least be perfectly vague.
“Off what?”

“ What’s the beastly phrase ? * Off colour.' I

mean do you think she’s all right ? ”

“ Are you in love with her ? ’’ Chilver after a
moment demanded.

“ Damn it, of course I’m in love with her ! "
Braddle joylessly articulated.

“ Well then, doesn’t that give you ? ”

“ Give me what ? ” he asked with impatience at
his companion’s pause.

“ Well, a sort of searching light ’’

“For reading her clear ? ” Braddle broke in.
“ How can you ask — as a man of the world — anything
so idiotic ? Where did you ever discover that being
in love makes a searching light, makes anything but
a most damnable and demoralising darkness ? One
has been in love with creatures such that one’s
condition has lighted nothing in the world but one’s
asininity. I have at any rate. And so have you ! "
“No, I've never been really in love at all,’’ said
Chilver good-humouredly.

“ The less credit to you then to have — in two or
three cases I recall — made such a fool of yourself.
I, at all events — I don't mind your knowing, ’’ B v addlc
went on — “ am harder hit, far and away, than I’ve
ever been. But I don’t in the least pretend to place
her or to have a free judgement about her. I’ve
already — since we landed — had two letters from her,
and I go down to-morrow to see her. That may
assist me — it ought to — to make her out a little better.
But I’ve a gruesome feeling that it won’t ! "

“ Then how can I help you ? " Chilver inquired
268

THE GREAT CONDITION

with just irritation enough to make him, the next
moment — though his interlocutor, interestingly worried
but really most inexpert, had no answer for the
question — sorry to have shown it. “ If you’ve
heard from her,” he continued, " did she send me
a message ? ”

" None whatever.”

“Nor say anything about me?”

“ Not a word.”

“ Ah ! ” said Henry Chilver, while their eyes again
met with some insistence. He somehow liked Mrs.
Damerel’s silence after the hours he had spent with
her ; but his state of mind was again predominantly
of not wanting Braddle to see in him any emotion.
“ A woman may surely be called all right, it seems to
me, when she’s pretty and clever and good.”

“ ‘ Good ’ ? ” Braddle echoed. “ How do you
know she’s good ? ”

“ Why, confound you, she’s such a lady.”

*' Isn't she ? " — Braddle took it up with equal
promptitude and inconsequence. Then he recovered
himself. “All the same, one has known ladies ! ”

“Yes, one has. But she's quite the best thing
that, in the whole time, we’ve come across.”

“ Oh, by a long shot. Think of those women on
the ship. It's only that she's so poor,” Braddle
added.

Chilver hesitated. “ Is she so awfully ? ”

“ She has evidently to count her shillings.”

“ Well, if she had been bad she'd be rich,” Chilver
returned after another silence. “ So what more do
you want ? ”

“ Nothing. Nothing,” Braddle repeated.

“ Good-bye, then.”

“ Good-bye.”

On which the elder man had taken leave ; so that
what was inevitably to follow had to wait for their
269

THE GREAT CONDITION

next meeting. Mrs. Damerel's victim betrayed on
this second occasion still more markedly the state of
a worried man, and his friend measured his unrest by
his obvious need of a patient ear, a need with which
Chilver's own nature, this interlocutor felt, would
not in the same conditions have been acquainted.
Even while he wondered, however, at the freedom
his visitor used, Chilver recognised that had it been
a case of more or less fatuous happiness Braddlc
would probably have kept the matter to himself.
His host made the reflexion that he, on the other
hand, might have babbled about a confidence, but
would never have opened his mouth about a fear.
Braddle’s fear, like many fears, had a considerable
queemess, and Chilver, in presence of it and even
before a full glimpse, had begun to describe it to
himself as a fixed idea. It was as if, according to
Braddle, there had been something in Mrs. Damerel's
history that she ought really to have told a fellow
before letting him in so far.

" But how far ? ”

“ Why, hang it, I’d marry her to-morrow."

Chilver waited a moment. " Is what you mean
that she’d marry you ? ”

" Yes, blest if I don’t believe she certainly would.”

" You mean if you’d let her off ? "

“ Yes," Braddle concurred ; " the obligation of
letting me know the particular thing that, whatever
it is, right or wrong, I've somehow got it so torment-
ingly into my head that she keeps back.”

“ When you say ‘ keeps back,' do you mean that
you’ve questioned her ? ”

"Oh, not about that ! " said Braddle with beautiful
simplicity.

" Then do you expect her to volunteer informa-
tion ”

“ That may damage her so awfully with me ? ’’
270

THE GREAT CONDITION

Braddle had taken it up intelligently, but appeared
sufficiently at a loss as to what he expected. “I'm
sure she knows well enough I want to know.”

“ I don’t think I understand what you’re talking
about,” Chilver replied after a longish stare at the
fire.

“ Well, about something or other in her life ; some
awkward passage, some beastly episode or accident ;
the things that do happen, that often have happened,
to women you might think perfectly straight — come
now ! and that they very often quite successfully
hide. You know what I’m driving at : some chapter
in the book difficult to read aloud — some unlucky
page she’d like to tear out. God forgive me, some
slip.”

Chilver, quitting the fire, had taken a turn round
the room. “ Is it your idea,” he presently inquired,
“ that there may have been only one ? I mean one
‘ slip.' ” He pulled up long enough in front of them
to give his visitor’s eyes time to show a guess at
possible derision, then he went on in another manner.
“ No, no ; I really don’t understand. You seem to
me to see her as a column of figures each in itself
highly satisfactory, but which, when you add them
up, make only a total of doubt.”

“ That’s exactly it ! ” Braddle spoke almost with
admiration of this neat formula. “ She hasn’t really
any references.”

“ But, my dear man, it's not as if you were engaging
a housemaid.”

Braddle was arrested but a moment. “ It's much
worse. For any one else I shouldn't mind ! ”

“ What I don't grasp,” his companion broke in,
“ is your liking her so much as to ' mind ’ so much,
without by the same stroke liking her enough not
to mind at all.”

Braddle took in without confusion this approach
271

THE GREAT CONDITION

to subtlety. “ But suppose it should be something
rather awful ? ”

It was his confidant, rather, who was a trifle dis-
concerted. “ Isn’t it just as easy — besides being much
more comfortable — to suppose there’s nothing ? ”

“ No. If it had been, don’t you see that I would
have supposed it ? There's something. I don’t know
what there is ; but there’s something.”

“ Then ask her.”

Braddle wondered. " Would you ? ”

“ Oh dear, no ! ”

“ Then I won't ! ” Braddle returned with an odd
air of defiance that made his host break into a laugh.
" Suppose,” he continued, “ she should swear there's
nothing.”

” The chance of that is just why it strikes me you
might ask her.”

” I ‘ might ' ? I thought you said one shouldn't.”

“ I shouldn’t. But I haven’t your ideas.”

“ Ah, but you don’t know her.”

Chilver hesitated. “ Precisely. And what you
mean is that, even if she should swear there’s
nothing, you wouldn’t believe her ? ”

Braddle appeared to give a silent and even some-
what diffident assent. “ There's nothing I should
hate like that. I should hate it still more than being
as I am. If you had seen more of her,” he pursued,
“ you would know what I mean by her having no
references. Her whole life has been so extra-
ordinarily — so conveniently, as one might .ay —
away from everything.”

” I see — so conveniently for her. Beyond verifica-
tion.”

“ Exactly ; the record’s inaccessible. It’s all the
‘ great West.’ We saw something of the great West,
and I thought it rather too great. She appears to
have put in a lot of California and the Sandwich
272

THE GREAT CONDITION

Islands. I may be too particular, but I don't fancy
a Sandwich Islands past. Even for her husband and
for her little girl — for their having lived as little as
for their having died — she has nothing to show. She
hasn’t so much as a photograph, a lock of hair or an
announcement in a newspaper."

Chilver thought. “ But perhaps she wouldn’t
naturally leave such things about the sitting-room
of a Brighton lodging.”

“ I daresay not. But it isn’t only such things.
It’s tremendously odd her never having even by mere
chance knocked against anything or any one that
one has ever heard of or could — if one should want
to — get at."

Again Henry Chilver reflected. “ Well, that’s
what struck me as especially nice, or rather as very
remarkable in her — her being, with all her attraction,
one of the obscure seventy millions ; a mere little
almost nameless tossed-up flower out of the huge
mixed lap of the great American people. I mean
for the charming person she is. I doubt if, after all,
any other huge mixed lap ”

" Yes, if she were English, on those lines," Braddle
sagaciously interrupted, “ one wouldn't look at her,
would one ? I say, fancy her English ! ”

Chilver was silent a little. " What you don’t like
is her music."

His visitor met his eyes. “ Why, it’s awfully good."

“ Is it ? I mean her having, as you told me on
the boat, given lessons.”

" That certainly is not what I most like her to
have done — I mean on account of some of the persons
she may have given them to ; but when her voice
broke down she had to do something. She had sung
in public — though only in concerts ; but that’s another
thing. She lost her voice after an illness. I don’t
know what the illness was. It was after her husband's
273 T

THE GREAT CONDITION

death. She plays quite wonderfully — better, she
says, really, than she sang ; so she has that resource.
She gave the lessons in the Sandwich Islands. She
admits that, fighting for her own hand, as she says,
she has kept some queer company. I’ve asked her
for details, but she only says she’ll tell me ‘ some
day.’ Well, what day, don't you know ? Finally
she inherited a little money — she says from a distant
cousin. I don't call that distant — setting her up.
It isn’t much, but it made the difference, and there
she is. She says she's afraid of London ; but I don’t
quite sec in what sense. She heard about her place
at Brighton from some ' Western friends.’ But how
can I go and ask them ? ”

" The Western friends ? ” said Chilver.

“ No, the people of the house — about the other
people. The place is rather beastly, but it seems
all right. At any rate she likes it If there's an
awful hole on earth it’s Brighton, but she thinks it
‘ perfectly fascinating.’ Now isn’t that a rum note ?
She’s the most extraordinary mixture."

Chilver had listened with an air of strained delicacy
to this broken trickle of anguish, speaking to the
point only when it appeared altogether to have
ceased. “ Well, my dear man, what is it, may I
ask in all sympathy, you would like me, in the
circumstances, to do ? Do you tvant me to sound
her for you ? "

" Don’t be too excruciatingly funny," Braddle after
a moment replied.

" Well then, clear the thing up."

" But how ? "

" By making her let you know the worst."

" And by what means — if I don’t ask her ? "

“ Simply by proposing."

“ Marriage ? ”

" Marriage, naturally."

274

THE GREAT CONDITION

“You consider,” Braddle inquired, “ that that will
infallibly make her speak ? ”

“Not infallibly, but probably.”

Braddle looked all round the room. “ But if it
shouldn't ? ”

His friend took another turn about. “ Well —

risk it ! ”

275

IV

Henry Chilver remained for a much longer time
than he would have expected in ignorance of the
effect of that admonition ; two full months elapsed
without bringing him news. Something, he meanwhile
reasoned, he should know — ought to know : it was
due to him assuredly that Bertram Braddle shouldn’t
— quite apart from the distance travelled in the
company of Mrs. Damcrel — go so far even with him
without recognising the propriety of going further.
But at last, as the weeks passed, he arrived at his
own estimate of a situation which had clearly nothing
more to give him. It was a situation that had
simply ceased to be one. Braddle was afraid and
had remained afraid, just as he was ashamed and
had remained ashamed. He had bolted, in his em-
barrassment, to Australia or the Cape ; unless indeed
he had dashed off once more to America, this time
perhaps in quest of his so invidious “ references.”
Was he looking for tracks in the great West or
listening to twaddle in the Sandwich Islands ? In
any case Mrs. Damerel would be alone, and the point
of honour, for Chilver himself, would have had its
day. The sharpest thing in his life at present was
the desire to see her again, and he considered that
every hour without information made a difference
for the question of avoiding her from delicacy.
Finally, one morning, with the first faint winter light,
276

THE GREAT CONDITION

it became vivid to him that the dictate of delicacy
was positively the other way — was that, on the basis
of Braddle’s disappearance, he should make her some
sign of recollection. He had not forgotten the address
observed on one of her luggage-labels the day he
had seen her up from Liverpool. Mightn't he, for
instance, run down to her place that very morning ?

Braddle couldn't expect ! What Braddle couldn’t

expect, however, was lost in the suppressed sound
with which, on passing into his sitting-room and taking
up his fresh letters, he greeted the superscription of
the last of the half-dozen just placed on his table.
The envelope bore the postmark of Brighton, and if
he had languished for information the very first lines
— the note was only of a page — were charged with it.
Braddle announced his engagement to Mrs. Damerel,
spoke briefly, but with emphasis, of their great
happiness and their early nuptials, and hoped very
much his correspondent would be able to come down
and see them for a day.

Henry Chilver, it may be stated, had, for reasons
of feeling — he felt somehow so deeply refuted — to
wait a certain time to answer. What had Mrs.
Damerel’s lover, he wondered, succeeded at last in
extracting from her ? She had made up her mind as
to what she could safely do — she had let him know
the worst and he had swallowed it down ? What
was it, the queer suppressed chapter ; what was the
awkward page they had agreed to tear out together ?
Chilver found himself envying his friend the romance
of having been sustained in the special effort, the
extreme sacrifice, involved in such an understanding.
But he had for many days, on the whole Vision, odd
impatiences that were followed by odder recoveries.
One of these variations was a sudden drop of the
desire to be in presence of the woman for the sight
of whom he had all winter consistently been yearning.

277

THE GREAT CONDITION

What was most marked, however, was the shake he
had vigorously to give himself on perceiving his
thoughts again and again take the direction that
poor Braddle had too successfully imparted to them.
His curiosity about the concession she might have
made to Braddle’s was an assumption — without
Braddle 's excuses — that she had really had some-
thing to conceal till she was sure of her man. This
was idiotic, because the idea was one that .never
would have originated with himself.

He did at last fix a day, none the less, and went
down ; but there, on the^spot, his imagination was,
to his surprise, freshly excited by the very fact that
there were no apparent signs of a drama. It was as
if he could see, after all, even face to face with her,
what had stirred within the man she had for a time
only imperfectly subdued. Why should she have
tried to be so simple — too simple ? She overdid it,
she ignored too much. Clear, soft, sweet, yet not a
bit silly, she might well strike a fellow as having had
more history than she — what should one call it ? —
owned up to. There were moments when Chilver
thought he got hold of it in saying to himself that
she was too clever to be merely what she was. There
was something in her that, more than anything ever
in any one, gratified his taste and seemed to him to
testify to the happiest exercise of her own ; and such
things brought up the puzzle of how so much taste
could have landed her simply where she was. Where
she was — well, was doubtless where she would find
comfort, for the man she had accepted was now visibly
at peace, even though he had not yet, as appeared,
introduced her to his people. The fact of which Chilver
was at last as at first most conscious was the way she
succeeded in withholding from his own penetration
every trace of the great question she had had out
with her intended, who yet couldn't have failed — one
278

THE GREAT CONDITION

would quite have defied him — to give it to her some-
how that he had on two occasions allowed his tongue
to betray him to the other person he most trusted.
Braddle, whose taste was not his strong point, had
probably mentioned this indiscretion to her as a
drollery ; or else she had simply questioned him,
got it out of him. This made their guest a
participant, but there was something beautiful
and final in the curtain that, on her side, she had
dropped. It never gave, all day, the faintest stir.
That affected Chilvcr as the mark of what there
might be behind.

Yet when in the evening his friend went with him
to the station — for the visitor had declined to sleep
and was taking the last train back — he had, after
they had walked two or three times up and down
the platform, the greatest mystification of all. They
were smoking ; there were ten minutes to spare, and
they moved to and fro in silence. They had been
talking all day — mainly in Mrs. Damcrel's company,
but the circumstance that neither spoke at present
was not the less marked. Yet if Chilver was waiting
for something on his host’s part he could scarcely
have said for what. He was aware now that if Mrs.
Damerel had, as he privately phrased it, “ spoken,”
it was scarcely to be expected that the man with a
standpoint altered by a definite engagement would
— at the present stage at least — repeat to him her
words. He felt, however, as the fruitless moments
ebbed, a trifle wronged, at all events disappointed :
since he had been dragged into the business, as he
always for himself expressed it, it would only have
been fair to throw a sop to his conjecture. What,
moreover, was Braddle himself so perversely and
persistently mum for — without an allusion that
should even serve as a penance — unless to draw out
some advance which might help him to revert with
279

THE GREAT CONDITION

an approach to grace ? Chilver nevertheless made
no advance, and at last as, ceasing to stroll, they
stood at the open door of an empty compartment,
the train was almost immediately to start. At this
moment they exchanged a long, queer stare.

" Well, good-bye/' said the elder man.

“ Good-bye." Chilver still waited before entering
the carriage, but just as he was about to give up his
companion added : "You see I followed your advice.
I took the risk.”

" Oh — about the question we discussed ? " Chilver
broke now, on the instant, into friendly response.
" See then how right I was."

Braddle looked up and down the train. " I don’t
know."

" You’re not satisfied ? "

“ Satisfied ? ” Still Braddle looked away.

" With what she has told you."

Braddle faced him again. " She has told me
nothing."

" Nothing ? ”

"Nothing. She has accepted me — that's all. Not
a bit else. So you see you weren't so right."

" Oh — oh ! ” exclaimed Chilver protestingly. The
guard at this moment interposing with a " Take your
seats, please ! " and sharply, on his entering the
carriage, shutting the door on him, he continued the
conversation from the window, on which he rested
his elbows. During the movement his protest had
changed to something else. “ Ah, but won’t she
yet ? "

" Let me have it ? I'm sure I don’t know. All I
can say is that nothing has come from her."

" Then it’s because there is nothing."

" I hope so," said Braddle from the platform.

" So you see," Chilver called out as the train
moved, " 1 was right ! " And he leaned forth as the
280

THE GREAT CONDITION

distance grew and Braddle stood motionless and
grave, gaily insisting and taking leave with his
waving hand. But when he drew in his head and
dropped into a seat he rather collapsed, tossing his
hat across the compartment and sinking back into a
corner and an attitude from which, staring before
him and not even lighting another cigarette, he never
budged till he reached Victoria.

A fortnight later the footfall of Mrs. Damerel's
intended was loud on the old staircase in the Temple
and the knob of his stick louder still on the old door.
“ It’s only that it has rather stuck in my crop," he
presently explained, “ that I let you leave Brighton
the other day with the pretension that you had been
‘ right,’ as you called it, about the risk — attending
the particular step — that I took. I can’t help it if I
want you to know — for it bore,s me that you’re so
pleased — that you weren’t in the least right. You
were most uncommonly wrong.”

“ Wrong ? "

“ Wrong."

Chilver looked vaguely about as if suddenly in
search of something, then moved with an odd general
inconsequence to the window. " As the day's so fine,
do you mind our getting out of this beastly stuffy
place into the Gardens ? We can talk there." His
hat was apparently what he had been looking for,
and he took it up, and with it some cigarettes.
Braddle, though seemingly disconcerted by what
threatened to be practically a change of subject,
replied that he didn't care a hang ; so that, leaving
the room, they passed together down to the court
and through other battered courts and crooked ways.
The dim London sunshine in the great surrounded
garden had a kindness, and the hum of the town was
as hindered and yet as present as the faint sense of
spring. The two men stopped together before a bench,
281

THE GREAT CONDITION

but neither for the moment sat down. " Do you
mean she has told you ? ” Chilver at last brought out.

" No — it's just what she hasn’t done.”

“ Then how the deuce am I wrong ? ”

“ She has admitted that there is something.”

Chilver markedly wondered. “ Something ?
What ? ”

" That's just what I want to know.”

“ Then you have asked her ? ”

Braddle hesitated. ” I couldn’t resist my curiosity,
my anxiety — call it what you will. I’ve been too
worried. I put it to her the day after you were down
there.”

” And how did you put it ? ”

" Oh, just simply, brutally, disgustingly. I said :
' Isn’t there something about yourself — something
or other that has happened to you — that you’re
keeping back ? ' ”

Chilver was attentive, but not solemn. “ Well ? ”

” Oh, she admitted it.”

“ And in what terms ? ”

" ‘ Well, since you really drive me to the wall,
there is something.' ”

Chilver continued to consider. “ And is that all
she says ? ”

“ No — she says she will tell me.”

“ Ah well, then ! ” And Chilver spoke with a
curious — in fact, a slightly ambiguous — little renewed
sound of superiority.

" Yes,” his friend ruefully returned, “ but not,
you see, for six months.”

“ Oh, I see ! I see ! ” Chilver thoughtfully re-
peated. “ So you’ve got to wait — which I admit
perfectly that you must find rather a bore. Yet if
she’s willing,” he went on with more cheer and as if
still seeking a justification of his original judgement
— ■“ if she’s willing, you see, I wasn't so much out.”

282

THE GREAT CONDITION

Bertram Braddlc demurred. " But she isn’t
willing.”

His interlocutor stared. “ I thought you said she
proposed it.”

" Proposed what ? ”

“ Why, the six months' wait — to make sure of
you.”

“ Ah, but she’ll be sure of me, after she has married
me. The delay she asks for is not for our marriage,”
Braddle explained, “ but only — from the date of our
marriage — for the information.”

" A-ah ! ” Chilver murmured, as if only now with
a full view. “ She means she'll speak when you are
married.”

“ When we are. And then only on a great con-
dition.”

“ How great ? ”

” Well, that if after the six months I still want it
very much. She argues, you know, that I shan’t
want it.”

"You won’t then — you won’t ! ” cried Chilver
with a laugh at the odd word and passing his arm into
his friend's to make him walk again. They talked
and they talked ; Chilver kept his companion's arm
and they quite had the matter out.

“ What's that, you know,” Braddlc asked, “ but a
way to get off altogether ? ”

” You mean for you to get off from knowing ? ”

” Ah no, for her ”

“ To get off from telling ? It is that, rather, of
course,” Chilver conceded. “ But why shouldn’t she
get off — if you should be ready to let her ? ”

” Oh, but if I shouldn’t be ? ” Braddle broke in.

“ Why then, if she promises, she'll tell you.”

“ Yes, but by that time the knot will be tight.”

" And what difference will that make if you don’t
mind ? She argues, as you say, that after that
283

THE GREAT CONDITION

amount of marriage, of experience of her, you won’t
care ! ”

" What she does tell me may be ? ” Braddle
smoked a moment in silence. " But suppose it should
be one of those things ” He dropped again.

“ Well, wdiat things ? ”

“ That a man can’t like in any state of satis-
faction.”

" I don’t know what things you mean.”

“ Come, I say — you do ! Suppose it should be
something really awful.”

“ Well, her calculation is that, awful or not,”
Chilver said, ” she’ll have sufficiently attached you
to make you willing cither totally to forgo her dis-
closure or else easily to bear it.”

“ Oh, I know her calculation — which is very charm-
ing as well as very clever and very brave. But my
danger ”

“ Oh, you think too much of your danger ! ”

Braddle stopped short. ” You don’t ! ”

Chilver, however, who had coloured, spent much of
the rest of the time they remained together in assur-
ing him that he allowed this element all its weight.
Only he came back at the last to what, practically,
he had come back to in their other talks. “ I don't
quite see why she doesn’t strike you as worth almost
any risk.”

" Do you mean that that's the way she strikes
you ? ”

” Oh, I've not to tell you at this time cf day,”
said Chilver, “ how well I think of her.”

His companion was now seated on a bench from
which he himself had shortly before risen. “ Ah,
but I don’t suppose you pretend to know her.”

” No — certainly not, I admit. But I don't see how
you should either, if you come to that.”

” I don’t ; but it's exactly what I'm trying for,
284

THE GREAT CONDITION

confound it ! Besides,” Braddle pursued, “ she
doesn’t put you the great condition.”

Chilver took a few steps away ; then as he came
back. “ No ; she doesn’t ! ”

” Wait till some woman does,” Braddle went on.
" Then you’ll see how you feel under it — then you
can talk. If I wasn’t .so infernally fond of her,” he
gloomily added, “ I wouldn’t mind.”

” Wouldn’t mind what ? ”

” Why, what she has been. What she has done.”

“ Oh ! ” Chilver vaguely ejaculated.

” And I only mind now to the extent of wanting
to know.” On which Braddle rose from his seat with
a heavy sigh. “ Hang it. I've got to know, you
know ! ” he declared as they walked on together.

285

V

Henry Chilver learned, however, in the course of
time that he had won no victory on this, after all,
rather reasonable ground — learned it from Mrs.
Damerel herself, who came up to town in the spring
and established herself, in the neighbourhood of
Kensington Square, in modest but decent quarters,
where her late suitor’s best friend went to pay her
his respects. The great condition hed, as each party
saw it, been fruitlessly maintained, for neither had,
under whatever pressure, found a way to give in.
The most remarkable thing of all was that Chilver
should so rapidly have become aware of owing his
acquaintance with these facts directly to Mrs.
Damerel. He had, for that matter, on the occasion
of his very first call, an impression strangely new +o
him — the consciousness that they had already touched
each other much more than any contact between
them explained. They met in the air of a common
knowledge, so that when, for instance, almost immedi-
ately, without precautions or approaches, she ^aid of
Bertram Braddle : “ He has gone off — heaven knows
where ! — to find out about me,” he was not in the
least struck with the length of the jump. He was
instantly sensible, on the contrary, of the greatest
pleasure in showing by his reply that he needed no
explanation. " And do you think he'll succeed ? ”

" I don't know. He’s so clever.”

286

THE GREAT CONDITION

This, it seemed to Henry Chilver, was a wonderful
speech, and he sat there and candidly admired her
for it. There were all sorts of things in it — faint,
gentle ironies and humilities, and above all the fact
that the description was by no means exact. Poor
Braddle was not, for such a measure as hers, clever,
or markedly wouldn’t be for such an undertaking.
The words completely, on the part of the woman
who might be supposed to have had a kindness for
him, gave him away ; but surely that was, in the face
of his attitude, a mild revenge. It seemed to Chilver
that until in her little makeshift suburban drawing-
room he found himself alone with Mrs. Damerel he
himself had not effectively judged this position. He
saw it now sharply, supremely, as the only one that
had been possible to his friend, but finer still was the
general state of perception, quickened to a liberal
intensity, that made him so sec it. He couldn’t
have expressed the case otherwise than by saying
that poor Braddle had had to be right to be so ridi-
culously wrong. There might well have been, it
appeared, in Mrs. Damercl’s past a missing link or
two ; but what was the very office of such a fact —
when taken with other facts not a bit less vivid — but
to give one a splendid chance to show a confidence ?
Not the confidence that, as one could only put it to
one's self, there had not been anything, but the con-
fidence that, whatever there had been, one wouldn’t
find that one couldn’t — for the sake of the rest —
swallow it.

This was at bottom the great result of the first
stages of Chilver's now independent, as he felt it to
be, acquaintance with Mrs. Damerel — a sudden view
of any, of every, dim passage, that was more than
a tender acceptance of the particular obscurity, that
partook really of the nature of affirmation and insist-
ence. It all made her, with everything that for her
287

THE GREAT CONDITION

advantage happened to help it on, extraordinarily
touching to him, clothed her in the beauty of her
general admission and her general appeal. Were
not this admission and this appeal enough, and could
anything be imagined more ponderously clumsy,
more tactless and even truculent, than to want to
gouge out the bleeding details ? The charming
woman was, to Chilver's view, about of his own age
— not altogether so young, therefore, as Braddle,
which was doubtless a note, too, in the latter’s
embarrassment — and that evidently did give time
for a certain quantity of more or less trying, of really
complicating experience. There it practically was,
this experience, in the character of her delicacy, in
her kindly, witty, sensitive face, worn fine, too fine
perhaps, but only to its increase of expression. She
was neither a young fool nor an old one, assuredly ;
but if the intenser acquaintance with life had made
the object of one’s affection neither false nor hard,
how could one, on the whole, since the story might
be so interesting, wish it away ? Mrs. Damerel’s
admission was so much evidence of her truth and her
appeal so much evidence of her softness. She might
easily have hated them both for guessing. She was
at all events just faded enough to match the small
assortment of Chilver’s fatigued illusions — those that
he had still, for occasions, in somewhat sceptical use,
but that had lost their original violence of colour.

The second time he saw her alone he came back
to what she had told him of Bertram Braddle. “ If
he should succeed — as to what you spoke of, wherever
he has gone — would your engagement come on
again ? ”

Mrs. Damerel hesitated, but she smiled. " Do you
mean whether he'll be likely to wish it ? ”

"No,” said Chilver, with something of a blush ;
" I mean whether you'll be.”

288

THE GREAT CONDITION

She still smiled. “ Dear, no. I consider, you
know, that I gave him his chance.”

“ That you seem to me certainly to have done.
Everything between you, then, as I understand it, is
at an end ? ”

” It's very good of you,” said Mrs. Damerel, ” to
desire so much to understand it. But I never give,”
she laughed, “ but one chance ! ”

Chilvcr met her as he could. “You evidently
can't have given any one very many ! ”

“ Oh, you know,” she replied, “ I don't in the least
regard it as a matter of course that, many or few,
they should be eagerly seized. Mr. Braddle has only
behaved as almost any man in his situation would
have done.”

Chilver at first, on this, only lost himself a while.
“ Yes, almost any man. I don’t consider that the
smallest blame attaches to him.”

“ It would be too monstrous.”

Again he was briefly silent, but he had his inspira-
tion. “ Yes, let us speak of him gently.” Then he
added : “ You’ve answered me enough. You’re free.”

“ Free indeed is whht I feel,” she replied with her
light irony, “ when I talk to you with this extra-
ordinary frankness.”

“ Ah, the frankness is mine ! It comes from the
fact that from the first, through Braddle, 1 knew.
And you knew I knew. And I knew that too. It
has made something between us.”

“ It might have made something rather different
from this,” said Mrs. Damerel.

He wondered an instant. “ Different from my
sitting here so intimately with you ? ”

“ I mightn’t have been able to bear that. I might
have hated the sight of you.”

“ Ah, that would have been only,” said Chilver,
“ if you had really liked me ! ”

289 u

THE GREAT CONDITION

She matched quickly enough the spirit of this.
“ Oh, but it wasn’t so easy to like you little enough ! ”

“ Little enough to endure me ? Well, thank
heaven, at any rate, we've found a sort of way ! ”
Then he went on with real sincerity : “I feel as if
our friend had tremendously helped me. Oh, how
easily I want to let him down ! There it is."

She breathed, after a moment, her assent in a sigh.
" There it is ! "

There indeed it was for several days during which
this sigh frequently came back to him as a note of
patience, of dignity in helpless submission, penetrat-
ing beyond any that had ever reached him. She had
been put completely in his power, her good name
handed over to him, by no act of her own, and in all
her manner in presence of the awkward fact there
was something that blinked it as little as it braved it.
He wondered so hard, with this, why, even after the
talk I have just reported, they were each not more
embarrassed, that it could only take him a tolerably
short time to discover the reason. If there was
something between them it had been between them,
in silence and distance, fronf the first, from even
before the moment when his friend, on the ship, by
the favour of better opportunity, had tumbled in
deep and temporarily blocked, as it were, the passage.
Braddle was good-looking, good-humoured, well-
connected, rich ; and how could she have known of
the impression of the man in the background any
more than the man in the background couid have
known of hers ? If she had accepted Braddle hadn't
it been just to build out, in her situation, at a stroke,
the worry of an alternative that was impossible ? Of
himself she had seen nothing but that he was out of
the question, and she had agreed for conscience, for
prudence, as a safeguard and a provision, to throw in
her lot with a charming, fortunate fellow who was
290

THE GREAT CONDITION

extremely in love. Chilver had, in his meditations,
no sooner read these things clear than he had another
flash that completed the vision. Hadn’t she then,
however, having done so much for reason, stood out,
with her intended, on the item of the great condition
— made great precisely by the insistence of each —
exactly because, after all, that left the door open to
her imagination, her dream, her hope ? Hadn't her
idea been to make for Bertram — troubled herself and
wavering for the result — a calculated difficulty, a
real test ? Oh, if there was a test, how he was ready
to meet it ! Henry Chilver’s insistence would take a
different line from that of his predecessor. He stood
at the threshold of the door, left open indeed, so that
he had only to walk over. By the end of the week
he had proposed.

291

VI

It was at his club, one day of the following year, that
he next came upon his old friend, whom he had
believed, turning the matter often round, he should
— in time, though the time might be long — inevitably
meet again on some ground socially workable. That
the time might be long had been indicated by a
circumstance that came up again as soon as, fairly
face to face, they fell, in spite of everything, to talk-
ing together. “ Ah, you will speak to me then,” said
Chilvcr, “ though you don’t answer my letters ! ”
Braddle showed a strange countenance, partly
accounted for by the fact that he was brown,
seasoned, a trifle battered and had almost grown
thin. But he had still his good monocular scowl,
on the strength of which — it was really so much less
a threat than a positive appeal from a superstibtle
world — any old friend, recognising it again, would
take almost anything from him. Yes indeed, quite
anything, Chilver felt after they had beer a few
minutes together : he had become so quickly con-
scious of pity, of all sorts of allowances, and this had
already operated as such a quickener of his private
happiness. He had immediately proposed that they
should look for a quiet corner, and they had found
one in the smoking-room, always empty in the
middle of the afternoon. Here it seemed to him that
Braddle showed him what he himself had escaped.
292

THE GREAT CONDITION

He had escaped being as he was — that was it : “ as
he was " was a state that covered now, to Chilver's
sense, such vast spaces of exclusion and privation.
It wasn’t exactly that he was haggard or ill ; his case
was perhaps even not wholly clear to him, and he had
still all the rest of his resources ; but he was miser-
ably afloat, and he could only be for Chilver the big,
sore, stupid monument of his irretrievable mistake.
“ Did you write me more than once ? ” he finally asked.

" No — but once. But I thought it, I'm bound to
say, an awfully good letter, and you took no notice of
it, you know, whatever. You never returned me
a word.”

“ I know,” said Braddle, smoking hard and look-
ing away ; "it reached me at Hawaii. It was, I dare-
say, as good a letter as such a letter could be. I
remember — I remember : all right ; thanks. But I
couldn’t answer it. I didn't like it, and yet I couldn’t
trust myself to tell you so in the right way. So I let
it alone.”

" And we’ve therefore known nothing whatever
about you.”

Braddle sat jogging his long foot. “ What is it
you’ve wanted to know ? ”

The question made Chilver feel a little foolish.
What was it, after all ? ” Well, what had become of

you, and that sort of thing. I supposed,” he added,
“ that you might be feeling as you say, and there
was a lot, in connexion with you, of course I myself
felt, for me to think about. I even hesitated a good
deal to write to you at all, and I waited, you remem-
ber, don’t you ? till after my marriage. I don’t
know what your state of mind may be to-day, but
you'll never, my dear chap, get a ‘ rise ' out of me.
I bear you no grudge.”

His companion, at this, looked at him again. “ Do

you mean for what I said ? ”

293

THE GREAT CONDITION

" What you said ? ”

“ About her”

" Oh no — I mean for the way you’ve treated us.”

“ How do you know how I’ve treated you ? ”
Braddlc asked.

“ Ah, I only pretend to speak of what I do know !
Your not coming near us. You’ve been in the
Sandwich Islands ? ” Chilver went on after a pause.

" Oh yes.”

” And in California ? ”

“ Yes — all over the place.”

“ All the while you’ve been gone ? ”

” No, after a time I gave it up. I’ve been round
the world — in extraordinary holes.”

“ And have you come back to England,” Chilver
asked, “ to stay a while ? ”

” I don’t know — I don’t know ! ” his friend replied
with some impatience.

They kept it up, but with pauses — pauses during
which, as they listened, in the big, stale, empty room,
always dreary in the absence of talk and the silence
of the billiard-balls just beyond — the loud tick of the
clock gave their position almost as much an air of
awkward penance as if they had had “ lines ” to do
or were staying after school. Chilver wondered if it
would after all practically fail, his desire that they
should remain friends. His wife — beautiful creature !
— would give every help, so that it would- really
depend on Braddle himself. It might indeed have
been as an issue to the ponderation of some such
question on his own part that poor Bertram suddenly
exclaimed : “I see you're happy — I can make that
out I ”

He had said it in a way suggesting that it might
make with him a difference for the worse, but Chilver
answered none the less good-humouredly. “I'm
afraid I can't pretend that I'm in the least miserable.

294

THE GREAT CONDITION

But is it impossible you should come and see us ? —
come and judge, as it were, for yourself ? ”

Braddle looked graver than ever. “ Would it suit
your wife ? "

“ Oh, she’s not afraid, I think ! ” his companion
laughed. “You spoke just now,” he after a moment
continued, " of something that in your absence, in
your travels, you ‘ gave up.' Let me ask you
frankly if you meant that you had undertaken
inquiries ”

“ Yes ; I ‘ nosed round,' as they say out there ; I
looked about and tried to pick something.’’ Braddle
spoke on a drop of his interlocutor, checked evidently
by a certain hardness of defiance in his good eyes ;
but he couldn’t know that Chilver wished to draw
him out only to be more sorry for him, hesitating
simply because of the desire not to put his proceeding
to him otherwise than gracefully. “ Awfully low-
minded, as well as idiotic, I daresay you’ll think it —
but I'm not prepared to allow that it was not quite
my own affair."

“ Oh, she knew ! " said Chilver comfortably enough.

“ Knew I shouldn’t find out anything ? Well, I
didn’t. So she was right."

Thus they sat for a moment and seemed to smoke
at her infallibility. “ Do you mean anything objec-
tionable ? " Chilver presently inquired.

“ Anything at all. Not a scrap. Not a trace of
her passage — not an echo of her name. That, how-
ever — that I wouldn't, that I couldn’t," Braddle added,
“ you’ll have known for yourself."

“No, I wasn't sure."

“ Then she was."

“ Perhaps," said Chilver. “ But she didn't tell
me."

His friend hesitated. “ Then what has she told
you ?

295

THE GREAT CONDITION

" She has told me nothing."

“ Nothing ? "

" Nothing," said Henry Chilver, smiling as with the
enjoyment of his companion's surprise. " But do
come and see us," he pursued as Braddle abruptly
rose and stood — now with a gravity that was almost
portentous — looking down at him.

"I’m horribly nervous. Excuse me. You make
me so," the younger man declared after a pause.

Chilver, who with this had got up soothingly and
still laughingly, laid a reassuring hand upon him.
" Dear old man — take it easy ! "

" Thanks about coming to see you," Braddle went
on. "I must think of it. Give me time."

" Time ? Haven’t you had months ? ’’

Braddle turned it over. " Yes ; but not on seeing
you this way. I'm abominably nervous, at all events.
There have been things — my silence among them —
which I haven’t known how you’d take."

" Well, you see how."

Braddle's stare was after all rather sightless. " I
see — but I don’t understand. I'll tell you what you
might do — you might come to me.”

"Oh, delighted. The old place ? "

" The old place." Braddle had taken out his eye-
glass to wipe it, and he cocked it characteristically
back. " Our relation's rather rum, you know."

" Yours and my wife's ? Oh, most unconven-
tional ; you may depend on it she feels that her
self.”

Braddle kept fixing him. " Then does she want
to crow over me ? "

"To crow ? " Chilver was vague. " About what ? ”

His interlocutor hesitated. " About having at
least got you”

" Oh, she's naturally pleased at that ; but her
satisfaction's after all a thing she can keep within
296

THE GREAT CONDITION

bounds ; and to see you again can only, I think,
remind her more than anything else of what she did
lose and now misses : your general situation, your
personal advantages, your connexions, expectations,
magnificence.”

Braddle, on this, after a lingering frown, turned
away, looking at his watch and moving for a minute
to the window. “ When will you come ? To-night ?”

Chilver thought. “Rather late — yes. With
pleasure.”

His friend presently came back with an expression
rather changed. “ What I meant just now was what
it all makes of my relation and yours — the way we
go into it.”

“ Ah, well, that was extraordinary — the way we
went into it — from the first. It was you, permit me
to remark,” Chilver pleasantly said, “ who originally
began going into it. Since you broke the ice I don't
in the least mind its remaining broken.”

“ Ah, but at that time,” Braddle returned, “ I
didn’t know in the least what you were up to.”

“ And do I now know any more what you are ?
However,” Chilver went on, “ if you imply that I
haven’t acted with most scrupulous fairness, we shall,
my dear fellow, quarrel as much as you please. I
pressed you hard for your own interest.”

“ Oh, my ‘ interest ’ ! ” his companion threw off
with another move to some distance ; coming back,
however, as quickly and before. Chilver had time to
take this up. “ It’s all right — I've nothing to say.
Your letter was very clever and very handsome.”
Then, “ I’m not ‘ up to ’ anything,” Braddle added
with simplicity.

The simplicity just renewed his interlocutor’s
mirth. “ In that case why shouldn’t we manage ? ”

“ Manage ? ”

“To make the best, all round, of the situation.”

297

THE GREAT CONDITION

“ I've no difficulty whatever,” said Braddle, " in
doing that. If I’m nervous I'm still much less so
than I was before I went away. And as to my
having broken off, I feel more and more how im-
possible it was I should have done anything else.”

“I’m sure of it — so we will manage.”

It was as if this prospect, none the less, was still
not clear to Braddle. " Then as you’ve so much
confidence I can ask you why — if what you said just
now of me is true — she shouldn’t have paid for me a
price that she was going, after all, to find herself
ready to pay for you”

“ A price ? What price ? ”

” Why, the one we’ve been talking about. That
of waiving her great condition.” On which, as
Chilver was, a moment — though without embarrass-
ment — silent for this explanation, his interlocutor
pursued : “ The condition of your waiting ”

“ Ah,” said Chilver, ” it remained. She didn’t
waive it.”

Oh, how Braddle looked at him ! “You accepted
it ? "

Chilver gave a laugh at his friend’s stare. “ Why
are you so surprised when all my urgency to you was
to accept it and when I thought you were going to ? ”
Bertram had flushed, and he was really astonished.
“ Hadn’t you then known ? ”

“ Your letter didn't say that.”

“ Oh, I didn't go into our terms.”

“ No,” said Braddle with some severity, " you
slurred them over. I know what you urged on me and
what you thought I was going to do. I thought I was
going to do it too. But at the scratch I couldn't.”

“ So you believed I wouldn’t ? ”

Poor Braddle was, after all, candid enough. " At
the scratch, yes ; when it came — the question — to
yourself, and in spite of your extraordinary preaching.

298

THE GREAT CONDITION

I think I took for granted that she must have done
for you what she didn’t do for me — that, liking you
all for yourself, don’t you see ? and therefore so much
better, she must have come round.”

“ For myself, better or worse, I grant you, was the
only way she could like me,” Chilver replied. “ But
she didn’t come round.”

"You married her with it ? ”

This was a question, however — it was in particular
an emphasis — as to the interpretation of which he
showed a certain reserve. “ With what ? ”

" Why, damn it, with the condition.”

" Oh yes — with the condition.” It sounded, on
Chilver’s lips, positively gay.

" You waited ? ”

" I waited.”

This answer produced between them for the time
— and, as might be said, by its visible effect on the
recipient — a hush during which poor Bertram did
two or three pointless things : took up an ash-tray
that was near them and vaguely examined it, then
looked at the clock and at his watch, then again rest-
lessly moved off a few steps and came back. At his
watch he gave a second glare. “ I say, after all —
don't come to-night.”

" You can’t stand me ? ”

“ Well, I don’t mind telling you you’ve rather upset
me. It's my abject nerves ; but they’ll settle down
in a few days, and then I’ll make you a sign. Good-
bye.”

“ Good-bye.” Chilver held a minute the hand he
had put out. “ Don’t be too long. My secondary
effect on you may perhaps be better.”

" Oh, it isn’t really you. I mean it's her.”

“ Talking about her ? Then we'll talk of something
else. You’ll give me the account ”

" Oh, as I told you, there was no account ! ” Braddle
299

THE GREAT CONDITION

quite artlessly broke in. Chilver laughed out again
at this, and his interlocutor went on : " What’s the
matter is that, though it’s none of my business, I
can't resist a brutal curiosity — a kind of suspense.”

” Suspense ? ” Chilver echoed with good-humoured
deprecation.

“ Of course I do see you’re thoroughly happy.”

" Thoroughly.”

Braddle still waited. ‘ ‘ Then it isn’t anything ? ”

" Anything ? ”

“To make a row about. I mean what you know.”

” But I don't know.”

*' Not yet ? She hasn’t told you ? ”

“ I haven’t asked.”

Braddle wondered. “ But it's’sik months.”

“ It’s seven. I’ve let it pass.”

“ Pass ? ” Braddle repeated with a strange sound.

“ So would you in my place.”

“ Oh no, I beg your pardon ! ” Braddle almost
exultantly declared. “ But I give you a year.”

" That’s what I've given,” said Chilver serenely.

His companion had a gasp. “ Given her ? ”

“ I bettered even, in accepting it, the great condi-
tion. I allowed her double the time.”

Braddle wondered till he turned almost paie.
“ Then it’s because you’re afraid.”

“ To spoil my happiness ? ”

" Yes — and hers.”

“ Well, my dear boy,” said Chilver cheerfully, ” it
may be that.”

“ Unless,” his friend went on, ” you're — in the
interest of every one, if you’ll permit me the expres-
sion ? — magnificently lying.” Chilver’s slow, good-
humoured head-shake was so clearly, however, the
next moment, a sufficient answer to this that the
younger man could only add as dryly as he might :
“ You’ll know when you want to.”

300

THE GREAT CONDITION

“ I shall know, doubtless, when I ask. But I feel
at present that I shall never ask.”

“ Never ? ”

" Never.”

Braddle waited a moment. “ Then how the devil
shall I know ? ”

Something in the tone of it renewed his companion's
laughter. “ Have you supposed I’d tell you ? ”

“ Well, you ought to, you know. And — yes — I’ve
believed it.”

“ But, my good man, I can’t ask for you."

Braddle turned it over. “ Why not, when one
thinks of it ? You know you owe me something.”

“ But — good heavens ! — what ? ”

“ Well, some kindness. You know you’ve all the
fun of being awfully sorry for me.”

“ My dear chap ! ” Chilver murmured, patting his
shoulder. “ Well, give me time ! ” he easily added.

“ To the end of your year ? I’ll come back then,”
said Braddle, going off.

301

VII

He came back punctually enough, and 011c of the
results of it was a talk that, a few weeks later, he had
one Sunday afternoon with Mrs. Chilver, whom, till
this occasion — though it was not his first visit to
the house — he had not yet seen alone. It took him
then but ten minutes — ten minutes of a marked but
subsiding want of ease — to break out with a strong
appeal to her on the question of the danger of the
possible arrival of somebody else. " Would you mind
— of course I know it’s an immense deal for me to ask
— having it just said at the door that you’re not at
home ? I do so want really to get at you.”

"Oh, you needn’t be afraid of an interruption.”
Mrs. Chilver seemed only amused. "No one comes
to us. You see what our life is. Whom have you
yet met here ? ”

He appeared struck with this. "Yes. Of course
your living at Hammersmith ”

" We have to live where we can live for tenpence
a year.” He was silent at this touch, with a silence
that, like an exclamation, betrayed a kind oi help-
lessness, and she went on explaining as if positively
to assist him. " Besides, we haven't the want. And
so few people know us. We’re our own company.”

" Yes — that’s just it. I never saw such a pair.
It’s as if you did it on purpose. But it was to show
you how I feel at last the luxury of seeing you without
Chilver.”

302

THE GREAT CONDITION

“ Ah, but I can't forbid him the door ! " she
laughed.

He kept his eyes for a minute on that of the room.
“ Do you mean he will come in ? ”

“ Oh, if he does it won’t be to hurt you. He’s not
jealous.”

“ Well, / am,” said the visitor frankly, “ and I
verily believe it's his not being — and showing it so —
that partly has to do with that. If he cared I believe

I shouldn’t. Besides, what does it matter ? ”

He threshed about in his place uncomfortably.

She sat there — with all her effaced anxieties —
patient and pretty. “ What does what matter ? ”

“ Why, how it happens — since it does happen — that
he’s always here.”

“ But you see he isn't ! ”

He made an eager movement. ” Do you mean
then we can talk ? ”

She just visibly hesitated. “ He and I only want
to be kind to you.”

“ That's just what’s awful ! ” He fell back again.
“ It’s the way he has kept me on and on. I mean
without ” But he had another drop.

“ Without what ? ”

Poor Braddlc at last sprang up. “ Do you mind
my being in a horrible fidget and floundering about
the room ? ”

She demurred, but without gravity. “ Not if you
don’t again knock over the lamp. Do you remember
the day you did that at Brighton ? ”

With his ambiguous frown at her he stopped short.
“ Yes, and how even that didn’t move you.”

“ Well, don't presume on it again ! ” she laughed.

“You mean it might move you this time ? ’’ he
went on.

“ No ; 1 mean that as I've now got better

lamps ! ”

303

THE GREAT CONDITION

He roamed there among her decent frugalities and,
as regarded other matters as well as lamps, noted once
more — as he had done on other occasions — the extreme
moderation of the improvement. He had rather
imagined on Chilver’s part more margin. Then at
last suddenly, with an effect of irrelevance : “ Why
don’t people, as you say, come to you ? ”

“ That’s the kind of thing,” she smiled, “ you used
to ask so much.”

“ Oh, too much, of course, and it’s absurd my still
wanting to know. It’s none of my business ; but,
you know, nothing is if you come to that. It’s your
extraordinary kindness — the way you give me my
head — that puts me up to things. Only you’re trying
the impossible — you can’t keep me on. I mean with-
out — well, what I spoke of just now. Do you mind
my bringing it bang out like a brute ? ” he continued,
stopping before her again. “ Isn’t it a question of
either really taking me in or quite leaving me out ? ”
As she had nothing, however, at first, for this inquiry
but silence, and as her face made her silence charming,
his appeal suddenly changed. ” Do you mind my
going on like this ? ”

“ I don’t mind anything. You want, I judge, some
help. What help can I give you ? ”

He dropped, at this, straight into his chair again.
" There you are ! You pitied me even from the first
— regularly beforehand. You’re so confoundedly
superior ” — he almost sufficiently joked. ” Of < ourse
1 know all our relations are most extraordinai * , but
I think yours and mine is the strangest — unless it
be yours and Chilver’s.”

“ Let us say it’s his and yours , and have done with
it,” she smiled.

" Do you know what I came back then for ? — I
mean the second time, this time ? ”

" Why, to see me, I've all these days supposed.”
304

THE GREAT CONDITION

“ Well," said Braddlc with a slight hesitation, " it
was, to that extent, to show my confidence.”

But she also hesitated. “ Your confidence in
what ? ”

He had still another impatience, with the force of
which he again changed his place. ” Am I giving him
away ? How much do you know ? ”

In the air of his deep unrest her soft stillness —
lending itself, but only by growing softer — had little
by little taken on a beauty. ” I'm trying to follow
you — to understand. I know of your meeting with
Henry last year at a club.”

” Ah then, if he gave me away ! ”

“ I gathered rather, I seem to remember, from what
he mentioned to me, that he must rather have given
me too. But I don’t in the least mind.”

“ Well, what passed between us then,” said
Braddle, ” is why I came back. He made me, if I
should wait, a sort of promise ”

” Oh ” — she took him up — “ I don’t think he was
conscious of anything like a promise. He said at
least nothing to me of that.” With which, as Braddlc’s
face had exceedingly fallen, ” But I know what you
then wanted and what you still want to know,” she
added.

On this, for a time, they sat there with a long look.
” I would rather have had it from him,” he said at last.

“ It would certainly have been more natural,” she
intelligently returned. ” But he has given you no
chance to press him again ? ”

“ None — and with an evident intention : seeing me
only with you.”

“ Well, at the present moment he doesn’t sec you
at all. Nor me either ! ” Mrs. Chilver added as if to
cover something in the accent of her former phrase.
" But if he has avoided close quarters with you it has
been not to disappoint you.”

305

x

THE GREAT CONDITION

“ He won’t, after all, tell me ? ”

" He can't. He has nothing to tell.”

Poor Braddle showed at this what his disappoint-
ment could be. " He has not even yet asked you ? ”
” Not even yet — after fifteen months. But don’t
be hard on him,” she pleaded. “ You wouldn’t.”

“ For all this time ? ” Braddle spoke almost with
indignation at the charge. “ My dear lady — rather ! ”
“ No, no,” she gently insisted, “ not even to tell
him.”

“ He told you then,” Braddle demanded, ” that I
thought he ought, if on no other grounds, to ask just
in order to tell me ? ”

“ Oh dear, no. He only told me he had met you,
and where you had been. We don’t speak of his
' asking,’ ” she explained.

“ Don’t you ? ” Her visitor stared.

“ Never.”

" Then how have you known ? ”

“ What you want so much ? Why, by having seen
it in you before — and just how much — and seeing it
now. I’ve been feeling all along,” she said, ” how you
must have argued.”

” Oh, we didn’t argue ! ”

” I think you did.”

He had slowly got up — now less actively but not
less intensely nervous — and stood there heedless of
this and rather differently looking at her. “ He
never talks with you of his asking ? ”

“ Never,” she repeated.

" And you still stick to it that I wouldn’t ? ”

She hesitated. ” Have talked of it ? ”

“ Have asked.”

She was beautiful as she smiled up at him. " It
would have been a little different. You would have
talked.”

He remained there a little in silence ; what he
306

THE GREAT CONDITION

might have done seemed so both to separate them and
to hold them together. “ And Chilver, you feel, will
now never ask ? "

" Never now."

He seemed to linger for conviction. " If he was

going to, you mean, he would have done it "

"Yes " — she was prompt — " the moment his time
was up."

"I see ” — and, turning away, he moved slowly
about. " So you're safe ? "

" Safe."

" And I'm just where I was ! " he oddly threw off.
" I'm amazed again," Mrs. Chilver said, " at your
so clinging to it that you would have had the benefit of
his information."

It was a remark that pulled him up as if something
like a liner embarrassment had now come to him.
" I’ve only in mind his information as to the fact that
he had made you speak."

" And what good would that have done you ? "

" Without the details ? " — he was indeed thinking.
" I like your expressions ! " said Mrs. Chilver.

" Yes — aren’t they hideous ? " He had jerked out
his glass and, with a returning flush, appeared to affect
to smile over it. But the drop of his glass showed
something in each of his eyes that, though it might
have come from the rage, came evidently — to his
companion's vision at least — from the more pardon-
able pain, of his uncertainty. " But there we are ! "
The manner in which these last words reached her
had clearly to do with her finally leaving her place,
watching him meanwhile as he wiped his glass. “Yes
— there we are. Ho did tell me," she went on, “ that
you had told him where you had been and that you

could pick up nothing "

" Against you ? ” he broke in. " Not a beggarly
word."

307

THE GREAT CONDITION

“ And you tried hard ? ”

“ I worked like a nigger. It was no use.”

“ But say you had succeeded — what,” she asked,
" was your idea ? ”

” Why, not to have had the thing any longer
between us.”

He brought this out with such simplicity that she
stared. “ But if it had been ? ”

“ Yes ? ” — the way she hung fire made him eager.

“ Well — something you would have loathed.”

“ Is it ? ” — he almost sprang at her. “ For pity’s
sake, what is it ?” he broke out in a key that now
filled the room supremely with the strange soreness
of his yearning for his justification.

She kept him waiting, after she had taken this in,
but another instant. “You would rather, you say,
have had it from him ”

” But I must take it as I can get it ? Oh, any-
how ! ” he fairly panted.

“ Then with a condition.”

It threw him back into a wail that was positively
droll. ” Another ? ”

“ This one,” she dimly smiled, “ is compara-
tively easy. You must promise me with the last
solemnity ”

“ Yes ! ”

” On the sacred honour of a gentleman ”

” Yes ! ”

” To repeat to no one whatever what you now have
from me.”

Thus completely expressed, the condition checked
him but a moment. “ Very well ! ”

“ You promise ? ”

" On the sacred honour of a gentleman.”

" Then 1 invite you to make the inference most
directly suggested by the vanity of your researches.”

He looked about him. “ The inference ? ”

308

THE GREAT CONDITION

“ As to what a'fault may have been that it’s im-
possible to find out.”

He got hold as he could. “ It may have been
hidden.”

“ Then anything hidden, from so much labour, so
well ”

“ May not have existed ? ” he stammered after she
had given him time to take something from her deep
eyes. He glared round and round with it — seemed
to have it on his hands before the world. “ Then
what did you mean ? ”

" Ah, sir, what did you ? You invented my past.”

" Do you mean you hadn’t one ? ” cried Bertram
Braddle.

“ None I would have mentioned to you. It was
you who brought it up.”

He appealed, in his stupefaction, to the immensity
of the vacancy itself. ” There's nothing ? ”

She made no answer for a moment, only looking,
while he dropped hard on her sofa, so far away that
her eyes might have been fixed on the blue Pacific.
“ There’s the upshot of your inquiry.”

He followed her, while she moved before him, from
his place. “ What did you then so intensely keep
back ? ”

“ What did yon,” she asked as she paused, ” so
intensely put forward ? I kept back what you have
from me now.”

“ This,” he gasped from the depths of his collapse,
“ is what you would have told me? ”

“ If, as my loyal husband, you had brought it up
again. But you wouldn’t ! ” she once more declared.

“ And I should have gone on thinking ”

" Yes,” she interrupted — “ that you were, for not
bringing it up, the most delicate and most generous
of men.”

It seemed all to roil over him and sweep him down,
309

THE GREAT CONDITION

but he gave, in his swift passage, a last clutch. "You
consent to let him think you ? ’’

" He thinks me what he finds me! ’’ said Mrs.
Chilver.

Braddle got up from the sofa, looking about for
his hat and stick ; but by the time he had reached
the door with them he rose again to the surface. " I
too, then, am to leave him his idea ? "

" Well, of what ? " she demanded as he faltered.

" Of your — whatever you called it."

" I called it nothing. You relieved me of the
question of the name."

He gloomily shook his head. "You sec to what
end ! Chilver, at any rate/ he said, " has his view,
and to that extent has a name for it."

" Only to the extent of having the one you gave
him."

" Well, what I gave him he took ! " Braddle, with
returning spirit, declared. " What I suggested — God
forgive me ! — he believed."

" Yes — that he might make his sacrifice. You
speak," said Mrs. Chilver, " of his idea. His sacrifice
is his idea. And his idea," she added, " is his happi-
ness."

" His sacrifice of your reputation ? "

" Well — to whom ? "

" To me,” said Bertram Braddle. " Do you
expect me now to permit tliat ? ”

Mrs. Chilver serenely enough considered. " I
shall protect his happiness, which is above <iix his
vision of his own attitude, and I don’t see how you
can prevent this save by breaking your oath."

" Oh, my oath ! " And he prolonged the groan of
his resentment.

It evidently — what he felt — made her sorry for
him, and she spoke in all kindness. " It’s only your
punishment ! " she sighed after him as he departed.

310

TIIE GIVEN CASE

311

I

Barton Reeve waited, with outward rigour and
inward rage, till every one had gone : there was in
particular an objectionable, travelled, superior young
man — a young man with a long neck and bad shoes,
especially great on Roumania — whom he was deter-
mined to outstay. He could only wonder the while
whether he most hated designed or unconscious un-
pleasantness. It was a Sunday afternoon, the time
in the week when, for some subtle reason, “ such
people ”■ — Reeve freely generalised them — most take
liberties. But even when the young man had dis-
appeared there still remained Mrs. Gorton, Margaret
Hamer’s sister and actual hostess — it was with this
lady that Miss Hamer was at present staying. He
was sustained, however, as he had been for half an
hour previous, by the sense that the charming girl
knew perfectly he had something to say to her and
was trying covertly to help him. “ Only hang on :
leave the rest to me " — something of that sort she
had already conveyed to him. He left it to her now
to get rid of her sister, and was struck by the wholly
natural air with which she soon achieved this feat.
It was not absolutely hidden from him that if he had
not been so insanely in love he might like her for
herself. As it was, he could only like her for Mrs.
Despard. Mrs. Gorton was dining out, but Miss
Hamer was not ; that promptly turned up, with the
3i3

THE GIVEN CASE

effect of bringing on, for the former lady, the question
of time to dress. She still remained long enough to
say over and over that it was time. Meanwhile, a
little awkwardly, they hung about by the fire. Mrs.
Gorton looked at her pretty shoe on the fender, but
Barton Reeve and Miss Hamer were on their feet as
if to declare that they were fixed.

" You’re dining all alone ? ” he said to the girl.

" Women never dine alone,” she laughed. “ When
they’re alone they don’t dine.”

Mrs. Gorton looked at her with an expression of
which Reeve became aware : she was so handsome
that, but for its marked gravity, it might have repre-
sented the pleasure and pride of sisterhood. But
just when he most felt such complacency to be natural
his hostess rather sharply mystified him. “ She won’t
be alone — more’s the pity ! ” Mrs. Gorton spoke with
more intention than he could seize, and the next
moment he was opening the door for her.

“ I shall have a cup of coffee and a biscuit — and
also, propped up before me, Gardiner’s Civil War.
Don't you always read when you dine alone ? ” Miss
Hamer asked as he came back.

Women were strange — he was not to be drawn in
that direction. She had been showing him for an
hour that she knew what he wanted ; yet now that
he had got his chance — which she moreover had given
him — she looked as innocent as the pink face in the
oval frame above the chimney. It took him, How-
ever, but a moment to see more : her innocen* c was
her answer to the charge with which her sister had
retreated, a charge into which, the next minute, her
conscious blankness itself helped him to read a sense.
Margaret Hamer was never alone, because Phil
Mackern was always — But it was none of his busi-
ness ! She lingered there on the rug, and it somehow
passed between them before anything else was done
314

THE GIVEN CASE

that he quite recognised that. After the point was
thus settled he took his own affair straight up. “You
know why I’m here. It's because I believe you can
help me."

“ Men always think that. They think every one
can ' help ’ them but themselves.”

“ And what do women think ? ” Barton Reeve
asked with some asperity. “ It might be a little of
a light for me if you were able to tell me that. What
do they think a man is made of ? What does she
think ? ”

A little embarrassed, Margaret looked round her,
wishing to show she could be kind and patient, yet
making no movement to sit down. Mrs. Gorton's
allusion was still in the air — it had just affected their
common comfort. “ I know what j^ou mean. You
assume she tells me everything.”

" I assume that you’re her most intimate friend.
I don’t know to whom else to turn.”

The face the girl now took in was smooth-shaven
and fine, a face expressing penetration up to the limit
of decorum. It was full of the man's profession —
passionately legal. Barton Reeve was certainly con-
cerned with advice, but not with taking it. “ What
particular thing,” she asked, “ do you want me to do?”

“ Well, to make her see what she's doing to me.
From you she’ll take it. She won't take it from me.
She doesn’t believe me — she thinks I’m ‘ prejudiced.’
But she'll believe you.”

Miss Hamer smiled, but not with cruelty. “ And
whom shall I believe ? ”

“ Ah, that's not kind of you ! ” Barton Reeve
returned ; after which, for a moment, as he stood
there sombre and sensitive, something visibly came
to him that completed his thought, but that he
hesitated to produce. Presently, as if to keep it
back, he turned away with a jerk. He knew all
315

THE GIVEN CASE

about the girl herself — the woman of whom they
talked had, out of the fulness of her own knowledge,
told him ; he knew what would have given him a
right to say : “ Oh, come ; don't pretend I’ve to
reveal to you what the dire thing makes of us ! ” He
moved across the room and came back — felt himself
even at this very moment, in the grip of his passion,
shaken as a rat by a terrier. But just that was what
he showed by his silence. As he rejoined her by the
chimney-piece he was extravagantly nervous. “ Oh
Lord, Lord ! " he at last simply exclaimed.

" I believe you — I believe you,” she replied. " But
she really does too.”

“ Then why does she treat me so ? — it’s a refine-
ment of perversity and cruelty. She never gives me
an inch but she takes back the next day ten yards ;
never shows me a gleam of sincerity without making
up for it as soon as possible by something that leaves
me in no doubt of her absolute heartless coquetry.
Of whom the deuce is she afraid ? ”

His companion hesitated. “ You perhaps might
remember once in a while that she has a husband.”

“ Do I ever forget it for an instant ? Isn’t my life
one long appeal to her to get rid of him ? ”

" Ah,” said his friend as if she knew all about it,
” getting rid of husbands isn’t so easy ! ”

" I beg your pardon ” — Reeve spoke with much
more gravity and a still greater competence — “ there's
every facility for it when the man's a proved brute
and the woman an angel whom, for three years, he
has not troubled himself so much as to look at.”

" Do you think,” Miss Hamer inquired, “ that,
even for an angel, extreme intimacy with another
angel — such another as you : angels of a feather flock
together ! — positively adds to the facility ? ”

Barton could perfectly meet her. ” It adds to the
reason — that’s what it adds to ; and the reason is
3i6

THE GIVEN CASE

the facility. I only know one way,” he went on, “ of
showing her I want to marry her. I can’t show it by
never going near her.”

“ But need you also show Colonel Dcspard ? ”

” Colonel Despard doesn’t care a rap ! ”

" He cares enough to have given her all this time
nothing whatever — for divorcing him, if you mean
that — to take hold of.”

” I do mean that,” Barton Reeve declared ; “ and
I must ask you to believe that I know what I’m talk-
ing about. He hates her enough for any perversity,
but he has given her exactly what is necessary.
Enough’s as good as a feast ! ”

Miss Hamer looked away — looked now at the
clock ; but it was none the less apparent that she
understood. “ Well — she of course has a horror of
that. I mean of doing anything herself.”

“ Then why docs she go so far ? ”

Margaret still looked at the clock. “ So far ? ”

“ With me, month after month, in every sort of
way ! ”

Moving away from the fire, she gave him an
irrelevant smile. “ Though I am to be alone, my
time's up.”

He kept his eyes on her. “ Women don’t feed for
themselves, but they do dress, eh ? ”

“ I must go to my room.”

" But that isn't an answer to my question.”

She thought a moment. “ About poor Kate’s
going so far ? I thought your complaint was of her
not going far enough.”

“ It all depends,” said Reeve impatiently, “ upon
her having some truth in her. She shouldn’t do what
she does if she doesn't care for me.”

“ She does care for you,” said the girl.

“ Well then, damn it, she should do much
more ! ”

3i7

THE GIVEN CASE

Miss Hamer put out her hand. “ Good-bye. I'll
speak to her.”

Reeve held her fast. ” She does care for me ? ”

She hesitated but an instant. “ Far too much.
It’s excessively awkward.”

He still detained her, pressing her with his sincerity,
almost with his crudity. ” That’s exactly why I’ve

come to you.” Then he risked : ” You know ! ”

But he faltered.

” I know what ? ”

“ Why, what it is.”

She ’threw back her head, releasing herself. " To
be impertinent ? Never ! ” She fairly left him — the
man was in the hall to let him out ; and he walked
away with a sense not diminished, on the whole, of
how viciously fate had seasoned his draught. Yet he
believed Margaret Hamer woilld speak for him. She
had a kind of nobleness.

318

II

At Pickenham, on the Saturday night, it came round
somehow to Philip Mackcrn that Barton Reeve was
to have been of the party, and that Mrs. Despard’s
turning up without him — so it was expressed — had
somewhat disconcerted their hostess. This, in the
smoking-room, made him silent more to think than
to listen — he knew whom he had “ turned up " without.
The next morning, among so many, there were some
who went to church ; Mackern always went now
because Miss Hamer had told him she wished it. He
liked it, moreover, for the time : it was an agreeable
symbol to him of the way his situation made him
“ good.” Besides, he had a plan ; he knew what
Mrs. Despard would do ; her situation made her good
too. The morning, late in May, was bright, and the
walk, though short, charming ; they all straggled, in
vivid twos and threes, across the few fields — passing
stiles and gates, drawing out, scattering their colour
over the green, as if they had the “ tip ” for some
new sport. Mrs. Despard, with two companions,
was one of the first ; Mackern himself, as it happened,
quitted the house by the side of Lady Orville, who,
before they had gone many steps, completed the
information given him the night before.

“ That's just the sort of thing Kate Despard's
always up to. I'm too tired of her ! ”

319

THE GIVEN CASE

Phil Mackern wondered. “ But do you mean she
prevented him ? ”

“ I asked her only to make him come — it was him
I wanted. But she’s a goose : she> hasn’t the
courage ”

" Of her reckless passion ? ” Mackcm asked as his
companion’s candour rather comically dropped.

“ Of her ridiculous flirtation. She doesn’t know
what she wants — she’s in and out of her hole like
a frightened mouse. On knowing she’s invited lie
immediately accepts, and she encourages him in the
fbnd thought of the charming time they’ll have.
Then at the eleventh hour she finds it will never do.
It will be too * marked ' ! Marked it would certainly
have been,” Lady Orville pursued. • “ But there would
have been a remedy ! ” *. 5

“ For her to have stayed a Way ? ”

Her ladyship waited. " What horrors you make
me say ! ”

“ Well,” Mackern replied, ” I'm glad she came. I
particularly want her.”

“You ? — what have you to do with her ? You're
as bad as she ! ” his hostess added ; quitting him,
however, for some other attention, before he had need
to answer.

He sought no second companion — he had matter
for thought as he went on ; but he reached the door
of the church before Mrs. Despard had gone m and
he observed that when, glancing back, she s*i\\ him
pass the gate, she immediately waited for him. She
had turned off a little into the churchyard, and as
he came up he was struck with the prettiness that,
beneath the old grey tower and among the crooked
headstones, she presented to the summer morning.

“ It’s just to say, before any one else gets hold of
you, that I want you, when we come out, to walk home
with me. I want most particularly to speak to you.”

320

THE GIVEN CASE

“Comme cela se trouve ! ” Mackern laughed. " That’s
exactly what I want to do to you ! ”

“ Oh, I warn you that you won’t like it ; but you
will have, all the same, to take it ! ” Mrs. Despard
declared. “ In fact, it's why I came,” she added.

“ To speak to me ? ”

“Yes, and you needn't attempt to look innocent
and interesting. You know perfectly what it’s
about ! ” With which she passed into church.

It scarce prepared the young man for his devotions ;
he thought more of what it might be about — whether
he knew or not — than he thought of what, ostensibly,
he had come for. He was not seated near Mrs.
Despard, but he appropriated her, after service, before
they had left the place ; and then, on the walk back,
took care they should be quite by themselves. She
opened fire with a promptitude clearly intended to
deprive him of every advantage.

” Don’t you think it’s about time, you know, to
let Margaret Hamer alone ? ”

He found his laugh again a resource. " Is that
what you came down to say to me ? ”

“ I suppose what you mean is that in that case I
might as well have stayed at home. But I can
assure you,” Mrs. Despard continued, “ that if you
don’t care for her, I at least do. I’d do anything
for her ! ”

” Would you ? " Philip Mackern asked. " Then,
for God's sake, try to induce her to show me some
frankness and reason. Knowing that you know all
about it and that I should find you here, that’s what
determined me. And I find you talking to me,” he
went on, “ about giving her up. How can I give her
up ? What do you mean by my not caring for her ?
Don’t I quite sufficiently show — and to the point
absolutely of making a public fool of myself — that I
don't care for anything else in life ? ”

321 v

THE GIVEN CASE

Mrs. Despard, slightly to his surprise and pacing
beside him a moment in silence, seemed arrested by
this challenge. But she presently found her answer.
“ That’s not the way, you know, to get on at the
Treasury.”

“ I don’t pretend it is ; and it’s just one of the
things that I thought of asking you to bring home
to her better than any one else can. She plays the
very devil with my work. She makes me hope just
enough to be all upset, and yet never, for an hour,
enough to be — well, what you may call made strong ;
enough to know where I am.”

“ You're where you've no business to be — that’s
where you are,” said Mrs. Despard. “ You’ve no
right whatever to persecute a girl who, to listen to
you, will have to do something that she doesn't
want, and that would be most improper if she
did.”

“You mean break off ? ”

“ I mean break off — with Mr. Grove-Stewart.”

“ And why shouldn’t she ? ”

“ Because they’ve been engaged three years.”

“ And could there be a better reason ? ” Philip
Mackern asked with heat. “ A man who's engaged
to a girl three years without marrying her — what
sort of a man is that, and what tie to him is she, or
is any one else, bound to recognise ? ”

“ He’s an extremely nice person,” Mrs. Dc r pard
somewhat sententiously replied, “ and he's to return
from India — and not to go back, you know — this
autumn at latest.”

“ Then that’s all the more reason for my acting
successfully before he comes — for my insisting on
an understanding without the loss of another
week.”

The young man, who was tall and straight, had
squared his shoulders and, throwing back his massive,
322

THE GIVEN CASE

fair head, appeared to proclaim to earth and air the
justice of his cause. Mrs. Despard, for an instant,
answered nothing, but, as if to take account of his
manner, she presently stopped short. “ I think I
ought to express to you my frank belief that for you,
Mr. Mackern, there can be nothing but loss. I’m
sorry for you, to a certain point ; but you happen to
have got hold of a girl who’s incapable of anything
dishonourable.” And with this — as if that were
settled — she resumed her walk.

Mackern, however, stood quite still — only too glad
of the opportunity for emphasis given him by their
pause ; so that after a few steps she turned round.
" Do you know that that's exactly on what I wanted
to appeal to you ? Is she the woman to chuck me
now ? ”

Mrs. Despard, all face and figure in the mild bright-
ness, looked at him across the grass and appeared
to give some extension to the question of what, in
general at least, a woman might be the woman to do.
" Now ? ”

” Now. After all she has done.”

Mrs. Despard, however, wouldn’t hear of what
Margaret Hamer had done ; she only walked straight
off again, shaking everything away as Mackern
overtook her. “ Leave her alone — leave her
alone ! ”

He held his tongue for some minutes, but he
swished the air with his stick in a way that made
her presently look at him. She found him positively
pale, and he looked away from her. “You should
have given me that advice,” he remarked with dry
derision, “ a good many weeks ago ! ”

” Well, it's never too late to mend ! ” she retorted
with some vivacity.

" I beg your pardon. It's often too late — altogether
too late. And as for ' mending,’ ” Mackern went on
323

THE GIVEN CASE

almost sternly, " you know as well as I that if I had
— in time, or anything of that sort — tried to back out
or pull up, you would have been the first to make her
out an injured innocent and declare I had shamefully
used her.”

This proposition took, as appeared, an instant or
two to penetrate Mrs. Despard’s consciousness ; but
when it had fairly done so it produced, like a train
of gunpowder, an audible report. “ Why, you strange,
rude man ! ” — she fairly laughed for indignation.
“ Permit me not to answer you : I can’t discuss any
subject with you in that key.”

They had reached a neat white gate and paused
for Mackem to open it ; but, with his hand on the
top, he only held it a little, fixing his companion
with insistence and seemingly in full indifference to
her protest. “ Upon my soul, the way women treat
men ! ”

“ Well ? ” she demanded, while he gasped as if it
were more than he could express.

" It’s too execrable ! There’s only one thing for
her to do.” He clearly wished to show he was not
to be humbugged.

. “ And what wonderful thing is that ? ”

” There’s only one thing for any woman to do,” he
pursued with an air of conscious distinctness, " when
she has drawn a man on to believe there’s nothing
she’s not ready for.”

Mrs. Despard waited ; she watched, over the gate,
the gambols, in the next field, of a small white lamb.
” Will you kindly let me pass ? ” she then asked.

But he went on as if he had not heard her. “ It’s
to make up to him for what she has cost him. It’s
simply to do everything.”

Mrs. Despard hesitated. “ Everything ? ” she then
vaguely asked.

” Everything,” Mackern said as he opened the gate.

324

THE GIVEN CASE

“ Won’t you help me ? ” he added more appealingly
as they got into the next field.

“ No.” She was as distinct as himself. She followed
with her eyes the little white lamb. She dismissed
the subject. “ You're simply wicked.”

325

Ill

Barton Reeve, of a Sunday, sometimes went for
luncheon to his sister, who lived in Great Cumberland
Place, and this particular Sunday was so fine that,
from the Buckingham Palace Road, he walked across
the Park. There, in the eastern quarter, he encountered
many persons who appeared, on the return from
church, to have assembled to mce* each other and
who had either disposed themselves on penny chairs
or were passing to and fro near the Park Lane palings.
The sitters looked at the walkers, the walkers at the
sitters, and Barton Reeve, with his sharp eyes, at
every one. Thus it was that he presently perceived,
under a spreading tree, Miss Hamer and her sister,
who, however, though in possession of chairs, were
not otherwise engaged. He went straight up to them,
and, while he stood talking, they were approached
by another friend, an elderly intimate, as it seemed,
of Mrs. Gorton's, whom he recognised as one of the
persons so trying to his patience the day of his long
wait in her drawing-room. Barton Reeve looked very
hard at the younger lady, and was perfectly conscious
of the effect he produced of always reminding her
that there was a subject between them. He was,
on the other hand, probably not aware of the publicity
that his manner struck his alert young friend as
conferring on this circumstance, nor of the degree
in which, as an illustration of his intensity about his
326

THE GIVEN CASE

own interests, his candour appeared to her comic.
What was comic, on his part, was the excessive frank-
ness — clever man though he was — of his assumption
that he finely, quite disinterestedly, extended their
subject by this very looking of volumes. She and
her affairs figured in them all, and there was a set
of several in a row by the time that, laughing in spite
of herself, she now said to him : “ Will you take me
a little walk ? " He left her in no doubt of his
alacrity, and in a moment Mrs. Gorton’s visitor was
in her chair and our couple away from the company
and out in the open.

“ I want you to know,” the girl immediately began,
“ that I’ve said what I could for you — that I say it
whenever I can. But I’ve asked you to speak to me
now just because you mustn’t be under any illusion

or flatter yourself that I’m doing " she hesitated,

for his attention had made her stop short — “ well,
what I'm not. I may as well tell you, at any rate,” she
added, “ that I do maturely consider she cares for you.
But what will you have ? She’s a woman of duty.”

“ Duty ? What do you mean by duty ? ”

Barton Reeve’s irritation at this name had pierced
the air with such a sound that Margaret Hamer
looked about for a caution. But they were in an
empty circle — a wide circle of smutty sheep. She
showed a slight prevision of embarrassment — even of
weariness : she had hoped for an absence of that.
“ You know what I mean. What else is there to
mean ? I mean Colonel Despard.”

“Was it her duty to Colonel Despard to be as
consciously charming to me as if there had been no
such person alive ? Has she explained to you that ? ”
he demanded.

“ She hasn’t explained to me anything — I don’t
need it,” said the girl with some spirit. “ I've only
explained to her”

327

THE GIVEN CASE

“ Well ? ” — he was almost peremptory.

She didn’t mind it. " Well, her excuse — for her
false position, I mean — is really a perfectly good one.”
Miss Hamer had been standing, but with this she
walked on. “ She found she — what do you call it ? —
liked you.”

“ Then what’s the matter ? ”

" Why, that she didn’t know how much you'd like
her, how far you’d — what do you call it ? — ‘ go.'
It’s odious to be talking of such things, I think,” she
pursued ; “ and I assure you I wouldn’t do it for other
people — for any one but you and her. It makes it
all sound so vulgar. She didn’t think you cared —
on the contrary. Then when she began to see, she
had got in too deep.”

" She had made my life impossible to me without
her ? She certainly has ‘ got in ’ to that extent,”
said Barton Reeve, “ and it’s precisely my contention.
Can you pretend for her that to have found out that
she has done this leaves open to her, In common
decency, any but the one course ? ”

" I don’t pretend anything ! ” his companion replied
with some confusion and still more impatience. “I'm
bound to say I don’t see what responsibility you’re
trying to fix on me.”

He just cast about him, making little wild jerks
with his stick. “ I’m not trying anything and
you’re awfully good to me. I daresay my predica-
ment makes me a shocking bore — makes me in fact
ridiculous. But I don’t speak to you only b( i ause
you’re her friend — her friend, and therefore not
indifferent to the benefit for her of what, take it
altogether, I have to offer. It's because I feel so
sure of how, in her place, you would generously,
admirably take your own line.”

“ Heaven forbid I should ever be in her place ! "
Margaret exclaimed with a laugh in which it pleased
328

THE GIVEN CASE

Reeve, at the moment, to discover a world of dis-
simulation.

“ You're already there — I say, come ! ” the young
man had it on his tongue’s end to reply. But he
stopped himself in time, and felt extraordinarily
delicate and discreet. “ I don’t say it’s the easiest
one in the world ; but here I stand, after all — and
I’m not supposed to be such an ass — ready to give
her every conceivable assistance.” His friend, at
this, replied nothing ; but he presently spoke again.
“ What has she invented, at Pickenham, to-day, but
to keep me from coming ? ”

" Is Kate to-day at Pickenham ? ” Miss Hamer
inquired.

Barton Reeve, in his acuteness, caught something
in the question — an energy of profession of ignorance
— in which he again saw depths. It presented
Pickenham and whomsoever might be there as such
a blank that he felt quite forced to say : “I rather
imagined — till I spied you just now — that you would
have gone.”

“ Well, you see I haven’t.” With which our young
lady paused again, turning on him more frankly. It
struck him that, as from a conscious effort, she had a
heightened colour. “ You must know far better than
I what she feels, but I repeat it to you, once for all,
as, the last time I saw her, she gave it me. I said
just now she hadn't explained, but she did explain
that.” The girl just faltered, but she brought it out.
" She can’t divorce. And if she can't, you know, she
can’t ! ”

“ I never heard such twaddle,” Barton Reeve
declared. “ As if a woman with a husband who hates
her so he would like to kill her couldn’t obtain any

freedom ! ” And he gave such a passionate

whirl of his stick that it flew straight away from
him.

329

THE GIVEN CASE

His companion waited till he had picked it up.
“ Ah, but there's freedom and freedom.”

“ She can do anything on all the wide earth she
likes.” He had gone on as if not hearing her, and,
lost in the vastness of his meaning, he absolutely
glared a while at the distance. ” But she’s afraid ! ”
Miss Hamer, in her turn, stared at the way he
sounded it ; then she gave a vague laugh. ” How
you say that ! ”

Barton Reeve said it again — said it with rage and
scorn. “ She’s afraid, she’s afraid ! ”

Margaret continued to look at him ; then she
turned away. “ Yes — she is.”

“ Well, who wouldn't be ? ” came to her, as a
reply, across the grass. Mrs. Gorton, with two
gentlemen now, rejoined them.

330

IV

On hearing from Mrs. Despard that she must see
him, Philip Mackern’s action was immediate : she
had named the morrow for his call, but he knocked
at her door, on the chance, an hour after reading
her note. The footman demurred, but at the same
moment Barton Reeve, taking his departure, appeared
in the hall, and Mackern instantly appealed to him.

“ She is at home, I judge — isn’t she ? ” The young
man was so impatient that it was only afterwards
he took into account a queerness of look on Reeve’s
part — a queerness that seemed to speak of a different
crisis and that indeed something in his own face
might, to his friend’s eyes, remarkably have matched.
Like two uneasy Englishmen, at any rate, they some-
how passed each other, and when, a minute later, in
the drawing-room, Mrs. Despard, who, with her back
presented, was at the window, turned about at the
sound of his name, she showed him an expression
in which nothing corresponded to that of her other
visitor. It may promptly be mentioned that, even
through what followed, this visitor's presence was,
to Mackern’s sense, still in the air ; only it was also
just one of the things ministering, for our friend, to
the interest of retrospect that such a fact — the fact
that Mrs. Despard could be so “ wonderful ” — con-
veyed a reminder of the superior organisation of
women. “ I know you said to-morrow,” he quickly
33i

THE GIVEN CASE

began ; “ but I’ll come to-morrow too. Is it bad or
good ? ” he went on — “ I mean what you have to
tell me. Even if I just know it’s bad, I believe I
can wait — if you haven’t time now.”

“ I haven’t time, at all, now,” Mrs. Despard replied
very sweetly. “ I can only give you two minutes —
my dressmaker’s waiting. But it isn't bad,” she
added.

" Then it’s good ? ” he eagerly asked.

“ Oh, I haven’t the least idea you’ll think it so !
But it's because it’s exactly what I myself have been
wanting and hoping that I wrote to you. It strikes
me that the sooner you know the better. I’ve just
heard from Bombay — from Amy Warden.”

“ Amy Warden ? ” Philip Mackern wondered.

“ John Grove-Stewart's sister— the nice one. He
comes home immediately — doesn’t wait till the
autumn. So there you are ! ” said Mrs. Despard.

Philip Mackern looked straight at the news, with
which she now presented herself as brilliantly illumi-
nated. “ I don't see that I’m anywhere but where
I’ve always been. I haven’t expected anything of
his absence that I shan't expect of his presence.”

Mrs. Despard thought a moment, but with perfect
serenity. “ Have you expected quite fatally to com-
promise her ? ”

He gave her question an equal consideration.
“To compromise her ? ”

“ That’s what you are doing, you know — as
deliberately as ever you can.”

Again the young man thought. They were in
the middle of the room — she had not asked him to
sit down. “ Quite fatally, you say ? ”

“ Well, she has just one chance to save herself.”

Mackern, whom Mrs. Despard had already, more
than once, seen turn pale under the emotion of which
she could touch the spring, gave her again — and with
332

THE GIVEN CASE

it a smile that struck her as strange — this sign of
sensibility. “ Yes — she may have only one chance.
But it’s such a good one ! ” he laughed. " What is
Mr. Grove-Stewart coming home for ? ”

“ Because it has reached him that the whole place is
filled with the wonder of her conduct. Amy Warden
thinks that, as so intimate a friend, I should hear what
he has decided to do. She takes for granted, I suppose
— though she doesn’t say it — that I’ll let Margaret
know.”

Philip Mackern looked at the ceiling. “ She
doesn’t know yet ? ”

Mrs. Despard hesitated. “ I suppose he means it
as a surprise.”

“ So you won’t tell her ? ”

“ On the contrary — I shall tell her immediately.
But I thought it best to tell you first.”

” I'm extremely obliged to you,” said Philip
Mackern.

“ Of course you hate me — but I don't care ! ” Mrs.
Despard declared. ” You’ve made her talked about
in India — you may be proud ! ”

Once more Philip Mackern considered. “ I’m not
at all proud — but I think I'm very glad.”

" I think you're very horrible then. But I've
said what I wanted. Good-bye.” Mrs. Despard had
nodded at the footman, who, returning, had announced
her carriage. He had left, on retiring, the door open,
and as she followed him to go to her room her visitor
went out with her. She gave Mackern, on the landing,
a last word. ” Her one chance is to marry him as
soon as he arrives.”

Mackern’s strange smile, in his white face, was now
fixed. “ Her one chance, dear lady, is to marry me.”

His hostess, suddenly flushing on this, showed a
passion that startled him. " Stuff ! ” she crudely
cried, and turned away with such impatience that,
333

THE GIVEN CASE

quitting her, he passed half downstairs. But she
more quickly turned back to him ; calling his name,
she came to the top, while, checked, he looked up at
her. Then she spoke with a particular solemnity.
“ To marry you, Mr. Mackern ” — it was quite portent-
ous — “ will be the very worst thing for her good name.”

The young man stood staring, then frankly emu-
lated his friend. ” Rubbish ! ” he rang out as he
swiftly descended.

334

V

" Mrs. Gorton has come in ? "

“ No, miss ; but Mrs. Despard is here. She said
she'd wait for you."

“ Then I’m not at home to any one." Margaret
Hamer went straight upstairs and found her visitor
in the smaller drawing-room, not seated, erect before
the fireplace and with the air of having for some time
restlessly paced and turned. Mrs. Despard hailed her
with an instant cry.

“ It has come at last ! ’’

“ Do you mean you’ve seen your husband ? "

“ He dropped on me to-day — out of the blue. He
came in just before luncheon. If the house is his

own ! ” And Mrs. Despard, who, as with the

first relief to her impatience, had flung herself, to
emphasise her announcement on the sofa, gave a long,
sombre sigh.

" If the house is his own he can come when he
likes ? ” Standing before her and looking grave and
tired, Margaret Hamer showed interest, but kept
expression down. “ And yet you were so splendidly
sure," she continued, “ that he wouldn't come ! ”

“ I wasn’t sure — I see now I wasn't ; I only tried
to convince myself. I knew — at the back of my head
— that he probably was in England ; I felt in all my
bones — six weeks ago, you know — that he would
really have returned and, in his own infamous, under-
335

THE GIVEN CASE

hand way, would be somewhere looking out. He
told me to-day about ninety distinct lies. I don’t
know how he has kept so dark, but he has been at
one of the kind of places he likes — some fourth-rate
watering-place.”

Margaret waited a moment. ” With any one ? ”

“ I don’t know. I don’t care.” This time, for
emphasis, Mrs. Despard jumped up and, wandering,
like a caged creature, to a distance, stopped before a
glass and gave a touch or two to the position 6f her
hat. “ It makes no difference. Nothing makes any.”

Her friend, across the room, looked at her with
a certain blankness. “ Of wliat does he accuse you ? ”

“ Of nothing whatever,” said Mrs. Despard, turn-
ing round. " Not of the least little thing ! ” she sighed,
coming back.

“ Then he made no scene ? ”

“ No — it was too awful.”

Again the girl faltered. “ Do you mean he
was ? ”

“ I mean he was dreadful. I mean I can’t bear it.”

" Does he want to come back ? ”

“ Immediately and for ever. ' Beginning afresh,’
he calls it. Fancy,” the poor woman cried, rueful and
wide-eyed as with a vision of more things than she
could name — “ fancy beginning afresh ! ” Once more,
in her fidget, appalled, she sank into the nearest seat.

This image of a recommencement had just then,
for both ladies, in all the circumstances, a forrf 1 that
filled the room — that seemed for a little fairly to make
a hush. “ But if he can’t oblige you ? ” Margaret
presently returned.

Mrs. Despard sat sombre. " He can oblige me.”

“ Do you mean by law ? ”

" Oh,” she wailed, " I mean by everything ! By

my having been the fool ! ” She dropped to her

intolerable sense of it.

336

THE GIVEN CASE

Margaret watched her an instant. “ Oh, if you
say it of yourself ! ”

Mrs. Despard gave one of her springs. “ And
don’t you say it ? ”

Margaret met her eyes, but changed colour. “ Say
it of you ? ”

“ Say it of yowrself.”

They fixed each other a while ; it was deep — it
was even hard. “Yes,” said the girl at last. But
she turned away.

Her companion’s eyes followed her as she moved ,*
then Mrs. Despard broke out. “ Do you mean you’re
not going to keep faith ? ”

" What faith do you call faith ? ”

“ You know perfectly what I call faith for you, and
in how little doubt, from the first, I’ve left you about
it ! ”

This reply had been sharp enough to jerk the
speaker for a moment, as by the toss of her head, out
of her woe, but Margaret met it at first only by show-
ing her again a face that enjoined patience and pity.
They continued to look indeed, each out of her
peculiar distress, more things than they found words
for. “ I don’t know,” Margaret Hamer finally said.
“ I have time — I’ve a little ; I’ve more than you —
that’s what makes me so sorry for you. I've been
very possibly the direst idiot — I'll admit anything you
like ; though I won’t pretend I see now how it could
have been different. It couldn't — it couldn't. I
don’t know, I don’t know,” she wearily, mechanically
repeated. There was something in her that had
surrendered by this time all the importance of her
personal question ; she wished to keep it back or to
get rid of it. “ Don't, at any rate, think one is selfish
and all taken up. I’m perfectly quiet — it's only about
you I’m nervous. You’re worse than I, dear,” she
added with a dim smile.

337

z

THE GIVEN CASE

But Mrs. Despard took it more than gravely.
“ Worse ? ”

“ I mean you've more to think of. And perhaps
even he's worse.”

Mrs. Despard thought again. “ He’s terrible.”

Her companion hesitated — she had perhaps mis-
taken the allusion. “ I don’t mean your husband.”

Mrs. Despard had mistaken the allusion, but she
carried it off. " Barton Reeve is terrible. It's more
than I deserve.”

“ Well, he really cares. There it is.”

“ Yes, there it is I ” Mrs. Despard echoed. “ And
much that helps me!"

They hovered about, but shifting their relation
now and each keeping something back. “ When are
you to see him again ? ” Margaret asked.

This time Mrs. Despard knew whom she meant.
” Never — never again. What I may feel for him —
what I may feel for myself — has nothing to do with
it. Never as long as I live ! ” Margaret’s visitor
declared. “ You don’t believe it ? ” she, however, the
next moment demanded.

“ I don’t believe it. You know how I’ve always
liked him. But what has that to do with it either ? ”
the girl almost incoherently continued. “ I don’t
believe it — no,” she repeated. “ I don't want to make
anything harder for you, but you won’t find it so
easy.”

“ I shan’t find anything easy, and I must row my
own boat. But not seeing him will be the least im-
possibility.”

Margaret looked away. “ Well ! ” — she spoke at
last vaguely and conclusively.

Something in her tone so arrested her friend that
she found herself suddenly clutched by the arm. " Do
you mean to say you'll see Mr. Mackern ? ”

“ I don’t know.”

338

THE GIVEN CASE

“ Then I do ! ” Mrs. Despard pronounced with
energy. " You're lost."

" Ah ! " wailed Margaret with the same wan de-
tachment.

“ Yes, simply lost ! ” It rang out — would have
rung out indeed too loud had it not caught itself just
in time. Mrs. Gorton at that moment opened the door.

339

VI

Mrs. Despard at last came down — he had been sure
it would be but a question of time. Barton Reeve had,
to this end, presented himself, on the Sunday morning,
early : he had allowed a margin for difficulty. He
was armed with a note of three lines, which, on the
butler’s saying to him that she was not at home, he
simply, in a tone before which even a butler prompted
and primed must quail, requested him to carry straight
up. Then unannounced and unaccompanied, not
knowing in the least whom he should find, he had
taken, for the hundredth time in four months, his
quick course to the drawing-room, where emptiness,
as it proved, reigned, but where, notwithstanding, he
felt, at the end of an hour, rather more than less in
possession. To express it, to put it to her, to put it
to any one, would perhaps have been vain and vulgar ;
but the whole assurance on which he had proceeded
was his sense that, on the spot, he had, to a certain
point, an effect. He was enough on the spot from the
moment she knew he was, and she would know it —
know it by divination, as she had often before shown
how extraordinarily she knew things — even if that
pompous ass had not sent up his note. To what point
his effect would prevail in the face of the biggest
obstacle he had yet had to deal with was exactly what
he had come to find out. It was enough, to begin with,
that he did, after a weary wait, draw her — draw her
340

THE GIVEN CASE

in spite of everything : he felt that as he at last heard
her hand on the door-knob. He heard it indeed pause
as well as move — pause while he himself kept perfectly
still. During this minute, it must be added, he looked
straight at the ugliest of the whole mixed row of
possibilities. Something had yielded — yes ; but what
had yielded was quite most probably not her softness.
It might well be her hardness. Her hardness was her
love of the sight of her own effect.

Dressed for church, though it was now much too
late, she was more breathless than he had ever seen
her ; in spite of which, beginning immediately, he
gave her not a moment. “ I make a scandal, your
letter tells me — I make it, you say, even before the
servants, whom you appear to have taken in the most
extraordinary way into your confidence. You greatly
exaggerate — but even suppose I do : let me assure you
frankly that I care not one rap. What you’ve done
you’ve done, and I'm here in spite of your letter — and
in spite of anything, of everything, any one else may
say — on the perfectly solid ground of your having
irretrievably done it. Don’t talk to me,” Reeve went
on, “ about your husband and new complications :
to do that now is horribly unworthy of you and quite
the sort of thing that adds — well, you know what —
to injury. There isn’t a single complication that there
hasn't always been and that we haven't, on the whole,
completely mastered and put in its place. There was
nothing in your husband that prevented, from -the
first hour we met, your showing yourself, and every
one else you chose, what you could do with me.
What you could do you did systematically and without
a scruple — without a pang of real compunction or a
movement of real retreat.”

Mrs. Despard had not come down unprepared,
and her impenetrable face now announced it. She
was even strong enough to speak softly — not to meet
34i

THE GIVEN CASE

anger with anger. Yet she was also clearly on her
defence. " If I was kind to you — if I had the frank-
ness and confidence to let it be seen I liked you — it's
because I thought I was safe."

* " Safe ? ” Barton Reeve echoed. " Yes, I’ve no

doubt you did ! And how safe did you think I was ?
Can’t you give me some account of the attention you
gave to that ? " She looked at him without reply to
his challenge, but the full beauty of her silent face had
only, as in two or three still throbs, to come out, to
affect him suddenly with all the force of a check. The
plea of her deep, pathetic eyes took the place of the
admission that his passion vainly desired to impose
upon her. They broke his resentment down ; all his
tenderness welled up with the change ; it came out in
supplication. " I can’t look at you and believe any
ill of you. I feel for you everything I ever felt, and
that we’re committed to each other by a power that
not even death can break. How can you look at me
and not know to what depths I’m yours ? You’ve
the finest, sweetest chance that ever a woman had ! ”

She waited a little, and the firmness in her face,
the intensity of her effort to possess herself, settled
into exaltation, at the same time that she might have
struck a spectator as staring at some object of fear.
” I see my chance — I see it ; but I don’t see it as you
see it. You must forgive me. My chance is not that
chance. It has come to me — God knows why ! — but
in the hardest way of all. I made a great mistake —
I recognise it.”

"So I must pay for it ? ” Barton Reeve asked.

She continued to look at him with her protected
dread. " We both did — so we must both pay."

" Both ? I beg your pardon," said the young
man : "I utterly deny it — I made no mistake what-
ever. I'm just where I was — and everything else is.
Everything but you ! ”

342

THE GIVEN CASE

She looked away from him, but going on as if she
had not heard him. “ We must do our duty — when
once we see it. I didn’t know — I didn’t understand.
But now I do. It’s when one’s eyes are opened —
that the wrong is wrong." Not as a lesson got by
heart, not as a trick rehearsed in her room, but deli-
cately, beautifully, step by step, she made it out for
herself — and for him so far as he would take it. “ I
can only follow the highest line." Then, after falter-
ing a moment, “ We must thank God," she said, “ it
isn’t worse. My husband’s here," she added with a
sufficient strangeness of effect.

But Barton Reeve accepted the mere fact as
relevant. " Do you mean he's in the house ? "

“ Not at this moment. He’s on the river— for the
day. But he comes back to-morrow."

“ And he has been here since Friday ? " She was
silent, on this, so long that her visitor continued :
“ It’s none of my business ? "

Again she hesitated, but at last she replied, “ Since
Friday."

" And you hate him as much as ever ? "

This time she spoke out : " More."

Reeve made, with a sound irrepressible and scarce
articulate, a motion that was a sort of dash at her.
" Ah, my own own ! "

But she retreated straight before him, checking
him with a gesture of horror, her first outbreak of
emotion. “ Don't touch me ! " He turned, after a
minute, away ; then, like a man dazed, looked, with-
out sight, about for something. It proved to be his
hat, which he presently went and took up. " Don’t
talk, don't talk — you're not in it ! " she continued.
“You speak of * paying,' but it’s I who pay." He
reached the door and, having opened it, stood with
his hand on the knob and his eyes on her face.
She was far away, at the most distant of the
343

THE GIVEN CASE

windows. “ I shall never care for any one again,"
she kept on.

Reeve had dropped to something deeper than
resentment ; more abysmal, even, it seemed to him,
than renouncement or despair. But all he did was
slowly to shake his helpless head at her. “ I've no
words for you.”

“ It doesn't matter. Don't think of me.”

He was closing the door behind him, but, still
hearing her voice, kept it an instant. “I'm all
right ! ” — that was the Jast that came to him as he
drew the door to.

344

VII

“ I only speak of the given case,” Philip Mackern
said ; “ that's the only thing I have to do with, and
on what I've expressed to you of the situation it has
made for me I don't yield an inch.”

Mrs. Gorton, to whom, in her own house, he had
thus, in defence, addressed himself, was in a flood of
tears which rolled, however, in their current not a few
hard grains of asperity. ” You’re always speaking of
it, and it acts on my nerves, and I don't know what
you mean by it, and I don’t care, and I think you're
horrible. The case is hkc any other case that can
be mended if people will behave decently.”

Philip Mackern moved slowly about the room ;
impatience and suspense were in every step he took,
but he evidently had himself well in hand and he
met his hostess with studied indulgence. She had
made her appearance, in advance, to prepare him for
her sister, who had agreed by letter to see him, but
who, through a detention on the line, which she had
wired from Bath to explain, had been made late for
the appointment she was on her way back to town to
keep. Margaret Hamer had gone home precipitately
— to Devonshire — five days before, the day after her
last interview with Mrs. Despard ; on which had
ensued, with the young man, whom she had left
London without seeing, a correspondence resulting
in her present return. She had forbidden him, in
345

THE GIVEN CASE

spite of his insistence, either to come down to her at
her mother's or to be at Paddington to meet her, and
had finally, arriving from these places, but just alighted
in Manchester Square, where, while he awaited her,
Mackern's restless measurement of the empty drawing-
room had much in common with the agitation to
which, in a similar place, his friend Barton Reeve had
already been condemned. Mrs. Goiton, emerging
from a deeper retreat, had at last, though not out of
compassion, conferred on him her company ; she left
him from the first instant in no doubt of the spirit in
which she approached him. Margaret was at last
almost indecently there, Margaret was upstairs,
Margaret was coming down ; but he would render the
whole family an inestimable service by quietly taking
up his hat and departing without further parley.
Philip Mackern, whose interest in this young lady was
in no degree whatever an interest in other persons
connected with her, only transferred his hat from the
piano to the window-seat and put it kindly to Mrs.
Gorton that such a departure would be, if the girl had
come to take leave of him, a brutality, and if she had
come to do anything else an imbecility. His inward
attitude was that his interlocutress was an insufferable
busybody : he took his stand, he considered, upon
admirable facts ; Margaret Hamer’s age and his own
— twenty-six and thirty-two — her independence, her
intelligence, his career, his prospects, his general
and his particular situation, his income, his extra-
ordinary merit, and perhaps even his personal appear-
ance. He left his sentiments, in this private estimate,
out of account — he was almost too proud to mention
them even to himself. Yet he found, after the first
moment, that he had to mention them to Mrs.
Gorton.

“ I don’t know what you mean," he said, “ by
my ' always ’ speaking of anything whatever that's
346

THE GIVEN CASE

between your sister and me ; for I must remind you
that this is the third time, at most, that we’ve had
any talk of the matter. If I did, however, touch, to
you, last month, on what I hold that a woman is, in
certain circumstances — circumstances that, mind you,
would never have existed without her encouragement,
her surrender — bound in honour to do, it was because
you yourself, though I daresay you didn't know with
what realities you were dealing, called my attention
precisely to the fact of the ‘ given case.’ It isn’t
always, it isn’t often, given, perhaps — but when it is
one knows it. And it’s given now if it ever was in
the world," Mackern still, with his suppression of
violence, but with an emphasis the more distinct for
its peculiar amenity, asserted as he resumed his
pacing.

Mrs. Gorton watched him a moment through such
traces of tears as still resisted the extreme freedom of
her pocket-handkerchief. “ Admit then as much as
you like that you've been a pair of fools and criminals ”
— the poor woman went far : “what business in the
world have you to put the whole responsibility on
her ? ”

Mackern pulled up short ; nothing could exceed
the benevolence of his surprise. “ On ‘ her ' ? Why,
don’t I absolutely take an equal share of it ? "

“ Equal ? Not a bit ! You’re not engaged to any
one else.”

“ Oh, thank heaven, no ! ’’ said Philip Mackern
with a laugh of questionable discretion and instant
effect.

His companion’s cheek assumed a deeper hue and
her eyes a drier light. “You cause her to be out-
rageously talked about, and then have the assurance
to come and prate to us of ‘ honour ’ ! ”

Mackern turned away again — again he measured
his cage. “ What is there I’m not ready to make
347

THE GIVEN CASE

good ? ” — and he gave, as he passed, a hard, anxious
smile.

Mrs. Gorton said nothing for a moment ; then she
spoke with an accumulation of dignity. “ I think you
both — if you want to know — absolutely improper
persons, and if I had had my wits about me I would
have declined, in time, to lend my house again to
any traffic that might take place between you. But
you’re hatefully here, to my shame, and the wretched
creature, whom I myself got off, has come up, and
the fat’s on the fire, and it’s too late to prevent it.
It's not too late, however, just to say this : that if
you’ve come, and if you intend, to bully and brow-beat
her ”

" Well ? ” Philip Mackern asked.

She had faltered and paused, and the next moment
he saw why. The door had opened without his hear-
ing it — Margaret Hamer stood and looked at them.
He made no movement ; he only, after a minute, held
her eyes long enough to fortify him, as it were, in his
attempted intensity of stillness. He felt already as if
some process, something complex and exquisite, were
going on that a sound, that a gesture might spoil. But
his challenge to Mrs. Gorton was still in the air, and
she apparently, on her vision of her sister, had seen
something pass. She fixed the girl and she fixed
Mackern ; then, highly flushed and moving to the
door, she answered him. “ Why, you’re a brute and
a coward ! " With which she banged the door behind
her.

The way the others met without speech or touch
was extraordinary, and still more singular perhaps
the things that, in their silence, Philip Mackern
thought. There was no freedom of appeal for him
— he instantly felt that ; there was neither burden
nor need. He wondered Margaret didn't notice in
some way what Mrs. Gorton had said : there was a

348

THE GIVEN CASE

strangeness in her not, on one side or the other,
taking that up. There was a strangeness as well,
he was perfectly aware, in his finding himself sur-
prised and even, for ten seconds, as it happened,
mercilessly disappointed, at her not looking quite
so “ badly ” as her encounter with a grave crisis
might have been entitled to present her. She looked
beautiful, perversely beautiful : he couldn’t indeed
have said just how directly his presumption of visible
ravage was to have treated her handsome head.
Meanwhile, as she carried this handsome head — in
a manner he had never quite seen her carry it before
— to the window and stood looking blindly out, there
deepened in him almost to quick anguish the fear even
of breathing upon the hour they had reached. That
she had come back to him, to whatever end, was some-
how in itself so divine a thing that lips and hands
were gross to deal with it. What, moreover, in the
extremity of a man’s want, had he not already said ?
They were simply shut up there with their moment,
and he, at least, felt it throb and throb in the hush.

At last she turned round. “ He will never, never
understand that I can have been so base.”

Mackern awkwardly demurred. “ Base ? ”

“ Letting you, from the first, make, to me, such a
difference.”

“ I don't think you could help it.” He was still
awkward.

“ How can he believe that ? How can he admit
it ? ”

She asked it too wofully to expect a reply, but the
young man thought a moment. “You can't look to
me to speak for him ” — he said it as feeling his way
and without a smile. “ He should have looked out
for himself.”

“ He trusted me. He trusted me,” she repeated.

" So did I — so did I.”

349

THE GIVEN CASE

“ Yes. Yes.” She looked straight at him, as if
tasting all her bitterness. ” But I pity him so that it
kills me!”

" And only him ? ” — and Philip Mackem came
nearer. ” It's perfectly simple,” he went on. “ I’ll
abide by that measure. It shall be the one you pity
most.”

She kept her eyes on him till she burst into tears.
“ Pity me — pity me ! ”

He drew her to him and held her close and long,
and even at that high moment it was perhaps the
deepest thing in his gratitude that he did pity her.

350

JOHN DELAVOY

351

I

The friend who kindly took me to the first night of
poor Windon’s first — which was also poor Windon’s
last : it was removed as fast as, at an unlucky dinner,
a dish of too perceptible a presence — also obligingly
pointed out to me the notabilities in the house. So it
was that we came round, just opposite, to a young
lady in the front row of the balcony — a young lady in
mourning so marked that I rather wondered to sec
Her at a place of pleasure. I daresay my surprise
was partly produced by my thinking her face, as I
made it out at the distance, refined enough to aid a
little the contradiction. I remember at all events
dropping a word about the manners and morals of
London- — a word to the effect that, for the most part,
elsewhere, people so bereaved as to be so becraped
were bereaved enough to stay at home. Wc recog-
nised of course, however, during the wait, that nobody
ever did stay at home ; and, as my companion proved
vague about my young lady, who was yet somehow
more interesting than any other as directly in range,
we took refuge in the several theories that might
explain her behaviour. One of these was that she
had a sentiment for Windon which could override
superstitions ; another was that her scruples had been
mastered by an influence discernible on the spot.
This was nothing less than the spell of a gentleman
beside her, whom I hud at first mentally disconnected
353 2 A

JOHN DELAVOY

from her on account of some visibility of difference.
He was not, as it were, quite good enough to have
come with her ; and yet he was strikingly handsome,
whereas she, on the contrary, would in all likelihood
have been pronounced almost occultly so. That was
what, doubtless, had led me to put a question about
her ; the fact of her having the kind of distinction that
is quite independent of beauty. Her friend, on the
other hand, whose clustering curls were fair, whose
moustache and whose fixed monocular glass particu-
larly, if indescribably, matched them, and whose
expanse of white shirt and waistcoat had the air of
carrying out and balancing the scheme of his large
white forehead — her friend had the kind of beauty
that is quite independent of distinction. That he was
her friend — and very much — was clear from his easy
imagination of all her curiosities. He began to show
her the company, and to do much better in this line
than my own companion did for me, inasmuch as he
appeared even to know who we ourselves were. That
gave a propriety to my finding, on the return from «n
dip into the lobby in the first entr’acte, that the lady
beside me was at last prepared to identify him. 1,
for my part, knew too few people to have picked up
anything. She mentioned a friend who had edged
in to speak to her and who had named the gentleman
opposite as Lord Yarracome.

Somehow I questioned the news. “ It sounds like
the sort of thing that’s too good to be true.”

“ Too good ? ”

“ I mean he’s too much like it.”

“ Like what ? Like a lord ? ”

“ Well, like the name, which is expressive, and —
yes — even like the dignity. Isn’t that just what
lords are usually not ? ” I didn’t, however, pause
for a reply, but inquired further if his lordship’s com-
panion might be regarded as his wife.

354

JOHN DELAVOY

“ Dear, no. She's Miss Delavoy.’'

I forget how my friend had gathered this — not
from the informant who had just been with her ; but
on the spot I accepted it, and the young lady became
vividly interesting. “ The daughter of the great
man ? ”

“ What great man ? ”

" Why, the wonderful writer, the immense novelist :
the one who died last year.” My friend gave me a
look that led me to add : “ Did you never hear of
him ? ” and, though she professed inadvertence, I
could see her to be really so vague that — perhaps a
trifle too sharply — I afterwards had the matter out
with her. Her immediate refuge was in the question
of Miss Delavoy’s mourning. It was for him, then,
her illustrious father ; though that only deepened the
oddity of her coming so soon to the theatre, and
coming with a lord. My companion spoke as if the
lord made it worse, and, after watching the pair a
moment with her glass, observed that it was easy to
see he could do anything he liked with his young
lady. I permitted her, I confess, but little benefit
from this diversion, insisting on giving it to her
plainly that I didn't know what we were coming to
and that there was in the air a gross indifference to
which perhaps more almost than anything else the
general density on the subject of Delavoy’s genius
testified. I even let her know, I am afraid, how
scant, for a supposedly clever woman, I thought the
grace of these lacuna ; and I may as well immediately
mention that, as I have had time to see, we were not
again to be just the same allies as before my explosion.
This was a brief, thin flare, but it expressed a feeling,
and the feeling led me to concern myself for the rest
of the evening, perhaps a trifle too markedly, with
Lord Yarracome's victim. She was the image of a
nearer approach, of a personal view : I mean in
355

JOHN DELAVOY

respect to my great artist, on whose consistent aloof-
ness from the crowd I needn't touch, any more than
on his patience in going his way and attending to
his work, the most unadvertised, unreported, uninter-
viewed, unphotographed, uncriticised of all originals.
Was he not the man of the time about whose private
life we delightfully knew least ? The young lady in
the balcony, with the stamp of her close relation to
him in her very dress, was a sudden opening into
that region. I borrowed my companion’s glass ; I
treated myself, in this direction — yes, 1 was moment-
arily gross — to an excursion of some minutes. I
came back from it with the sense of something gained ;
I felt as if I had been studying Delavoy’s own face,
no portrait of which I had ever met. The result of
it all, I easily recognised, would be to add greatly to
my impatience for the finished book he had left
behind, which had not yet seen the light, which was
announced for a near date, and as to which rumour
— I mean of course only in the particular warm air in
which it lived at all — had already been sharp. I went
out after the second act to make room for another
visitor — they buzzed all over the place — and when I
rejoined my friend she was primed with rectifications.

“ He isn’t Lord Yarracome at all. He’s only Mr.
Boston.”

I fairly jumped ; I see, as I now think, that it was
as if I had read the future in a flash of lightning.

“ Only ? The mighty editor ? ”

” Yes, of the celebrated Cynosure.” My inter-
locutress was determined this time not to be at fault.
“ He’s always at first nights.”

“ What a chance for me, then,” I replied, “ to
judge of my particular fate ! ”

“ Does that depend on Mr. Beston ? ” she inquired ;
on which I again borrowed her glass and went deeper
into the subject.

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JOHN DELAVOY

“ Well, my literary fortune does. I sent him a
fortnight ago the best thing I’ve ever done. I've not
as yet had a sign from him, but I can perhaps make
out in his face, in the light of his type and expression,
some little portent or promise.” I did my best, but
when after a minute my companion asked what I
discovered I was obliged to answer “ Nothing ! ”
The next moment I added : “ He won’t take it.”

" Oh, I hope so ! ”

” That's just what I’ve been doing.” I gave back
the glass. " Such a face is an abyss.”

“ Don't you think it handsome ? ”

” Glorious. Gorgeous. Immense. Oh, I’m lost !
What docs Miss Delavoy think of it ? ” I then
articulated.

“ Can’t you see ? ” My companion used her glass.
" She’s under the charm — she has succumbed. How
else can he have dragged her here in her state ? ” I
wondered much, and indeed her state seemed happy
enough, though somehow, at the same time, the pair
struck me as not in the least matching. It was only
for half a minute that my friend made them do so
by going on : “ It’s perfectly evident. She's not a
daughter, I should have told you, by the way — she's
only a sister. They’ve struck up an intimacy in the
glow of his having engaged to publish from month to
month the wonderful book that, as I understand you,
her brother has left behind.”

That was plausible, but it didn't bear another
look. “ Never ! ” I at last returned. “ Daughter or
sister, that fellow won’t touch him.”

” Why in the world ? ”

“ Well, for the same reason that, as you’ll sec, he
won’t touch me. It’s wretched, but we're too good
for him.” My explanation did as well as another,
though it had the drawback of leaving me to find
another for Miss Dclavoy’s enslavement. I was not
357

JOHN DELAVOY

to find it that evening, for as poor Windon’s play
went on we had other problems to meet, and at the
end our objects of interest were lost to sight in the
general blinding blizzard. The affair was a bitter
“ frost,” and if we were all in our places to the last
everything else had disappeared. When I got home
it was to be met by a note from Mr. Beston accepting
my article almost with enthusiasm, and it is a proof
of the rapidity of my fond revulsion that before I
went to sleep, which was not till ever so late, I had
excitedly embraced the prospect of letting him have,
on the occasion of Delavoy’s new thing, my peculiar
view of the great man. 1 must add that I was not a
little ashamed to feel I had made a fortune the very
night Windon had lost one.

358

II

Mr. Beston really proved, in the event, most kind,
though his appeal, which promised to become fre-
quent, was for two or three quite different things
before it came round to my peculiar view of Dclavoy.
It in fact never addressed itself at all to that altar,
and we met on the question only when, the posthu-
mous volume having come out, I had found myself
wound up enough to risk indiscretions. By this time
I had twice been with him and had had three or four
of his notes. They were the barest bones, but they
phrased, in a manner, a connexion. This was not a
triumph, however, to bring me so near to him as to
judge of the origin and nature of his relations with
Miss Delavoy. That his magazine would, after all,
publish no specimens was proved by the final appear-
ance of the new book at a single splendid bound.
The impression it made was of the deepest — it
remains the author's highest mark ; but I heard, in
spite of this, of no emptying of table-drawers for Mr.
Boston's benefit. What the book is we know still
better to-day, and perhaps even Mr. Beston does ;
but there was no approach at the time to a general
rush, and I therefore of course saw that if he was
thick with the great man's literary legatee — as I, at
least, supposed her — it was on some basis independent
of his bringing anything out. Nevertheless he quite
rose to the idea of my study, as I called it, which I
put before him in a brief interview.

359

JOHN DELAVOY

“You ought to have something. That thing has
brought him to the front with a leap ! ’’

“ The front ? What do you call the front ? ’’

He had laughed so good-humouredly that I could
do the same. “ Well, the front is where you and I
arc.” I told him my paper was already finished.

“ Ah then, you must write it again.”

“ Oh, but look at it first ! ”

“ You must write it again,” Mr. Beston only
repeated. Before I left him, however, he had ex
plained a little. “You must see his sister.”

“ I shall be delighted to do that.”

" She’s a great friend of mine, and my having
something may please her — which, though my first,
my only duty is to please my subscribers and
shareholders, is a thing I should rather like to
do. I’ll take from you something of the kind
you mention, but only if she’s favourably impressed
by it.”

I just hesitated, and it was not without a grain of
hypocrisy that I artfully replied : “I would much
rather you were ! ”

“ Well, I shall be if she is.” Mr. Beston spoke
with gravity. “ She can give you a good deal, don't
you know ? — all sorts of leads and glimpses. She
naturally knows more about him than any one.
Besides, she’s charming herself.”

To dip so deep could only be an enticement ; yet
I already felt so saturated, felt my cup so full, lint I
almost wondered what was left to me to h arn,
almost feared to lose, in greater waters, my feet and
my courage. At the same time I welcomed without
reserve the opportunity my patron offered, making
as my one condition that if Miss Dclavoy assented
he would print my article as it stood. It was arranged
that he should tell her that I would, with her leave,
call upon her, and I begged him to let her know in
360

JOHN DELAVOY

advance that I was prostrate before her brother. He
had all the air of thinking that he should have put
us in a relation by which The Cynosure would largely
profit, and I left him with the peaceful consciousness
that if I had baited my biggest hook he had opened
his widest mouth. I wondered a little, in truth, how
he could care enough for Delavoy without caring
more than enough, but I may at once say that I was,
in respect to Mr. Beston, now virtually in possession
of my point of view. This had revealed to me an
intellectual economy of the rarest kind. There was
not a thing in the world — with a single exception, on
which I shall presently touch — that he valued for
itself, and not a scrap he knew about anything save
whether or no it would do. To “ do ” with Mr.
Beston, was to do for The Cynosure. The wonder
was that he could know that of things of which he
knew nothing else whatever.

There are a hundred reasons, even in this most
private record, which, from a turn of mind so unlike
Mr. Boston’s, I keep exactly for a love of the fact
in itself : there are a hundred confused delicacies,
operating however late, that hold my hand from any
motion to treat the question of the effect produced
on me by hist meeting with Miss Delavoy. I say
there are a hundred, but it would better express my
sense perhaps to speak of them all in the singular.
Certain it is that one of them embraces and displaces
the others. It was not the first time, and I daresay
it was not even the second, that I grew sure of a
shyness on the part of this young lady greater than
any exhibition in such a line that my kindred con-
stitution had ever allowed me to be clear about. My
own diffidence, 1 may say, kept me in the dark so long
that my perception of hers had to be retroactive — to
go back and put together and, with an element of
relief, interpret and fill out. It failed, inevitably, to

361

JOHN DELAVOY

operate in respect to a person in whom the infirmity
of which I speak had none of the awkwardness, the
tell-tale anguish, that makes it as a rule either ridicu-
lous or tragic. It was too deep, too still, too general
— it was perhaps even too proud. I must content
myself, however, with saying that I have in all my
life known nothing more beautiful than the faint,
cool morning-mist of confidence less and less em-
barrassed in which it slowly evaporated. We have
made the thing all out since, and we understand it all
now. It took her longer than I measured to believe
that a man without her particular knowledge could
make such an approach to her particular love. The
approach was made in my paper, which I left with
her on my first visit and in which, on my second, she
told me she had not an alteration to suggest. She
said of it what I had occasionally, to an artist, heard
said, or said myself, of a likeness happily caught :
that to touch it again would spoil it, that it had
“ come ” and must only be left. It may be imagined
that after such a speech I was willing to wait for
anything ; unless indeed it be suggested that there
could be then nothing more to wait for. A great
deal more, at any rate, seemed to arrive, and it was
all in conversation about Delavoy that we ceased to
be hindered and hushed. The place was still full of
him, and in everything there that spoke to me I
heard the sound of his voice. I read his style into
everything — I read it into his sister. She wa: sur-
rounded by his relics, his possessions, his booh ; all
of which were not many, for he had worked without
material reward : this only, however, made each
more charged, somehow, and more personal. He
had been her only devotion, and there were moments
when she might have been taken for the guardian of
a temple or a tomb. That was what brought me
nearer than I had got even in my paper ; the sense
362

JOHN DELAVOY

that it was he, in a manner, who had made her, and
that to be with her was still to be with himself. It
was not only that I could talk to him so ; it was that
he listened and that he also talked. Little by little
and touch by touch she built him up to me ; and
then it was, I confess, that I felt, in comparison, the
shrinkage of what I had written. It grew faint and
small — though indeed only for myself ; it had from
the first, for the witness who counted so much more,
a merit that I have ever since reckoned the great
good fortune of my life, and even, I will go so far as
to say, a fine case of inspiration. I hasten to add
that this case had been preceded by a still finer.
Miss Delavoy had made of her brother the year before
his death a portrait in pencil that was precious for
two. rare reasons. It was the only representation of
the sort in existence, and it was a work of curious
distinction. Conventional but sincere, highly finished
and smaller than life, it had a quality that, in any col-
lection, would have caused it to be scanned for some
signature known to the initiated. It was a thing of
real vision, yet it was a thing of taste, and as soon as
I learned that our hero, sole of his species, had suc-
ceeded in never, save on this occasion, sitting, least
of all to a photographer, I took the full measure of
what the studied strokes of a pious hand would some
day represent for generations more aware of John
Delavoy than, on the whole, his own had been. My
feeling for them was not diminished, moreover, by
learning from my young lady that Mr. Boston, who
had given them some attention, had signified that,
in the event of his publishing an article, he would like
a reproduction of the drawing to accompany it. The
“ pictures ” in The Cynosure were in general a marked
chill to my sympathy : I had always held that, like
good wine, honest prose needed, as it were, no bush.
I took them as a sign that if good wine, as we

363

JOHN DELAVOY

know, is more and more hard to meet, the other
commodity was becoming as scarce. The bushes,
at all events, in The Cynosure,, quite planted out
the text ; but my objection fell in the presence of
Miss Delavoy’s sketch, which already, in the fore-
front of my study, I saw as a flower in the coat of
a bridegroom.

I was obliged just after my visit to leave town for
three weeks and was, in the country, surprised at
their elapsing without bringing me a proof from Mr.
Beston. I finally wrote to ask of him an explanation
of the delay ; for which in turn I had again to wait
so long that before I heard from him I received a
letter from Miss Dclavoy, who, thanking me as for a
good office, let me know that our friend had asked
her for the portrait. She appeared to suppose that
I must have put in with him some word for it that
availed more expertly than what had passed on the
subject between themselves. This gave me occasion,
on my return to town, to call on her for the purpose
of explaining how little as yet, unfortunately, she
owed me. I am not indeed sure that it didn’t quicken
my return. I knocked at her door with rather a
vivid sense that if Mr. Beston had her drawing I
was yet still without my proof. My privation was the
next moment to feel a sharper pinch, for on entering
her apartment I found Mr. Beston in possession.
Then it was that I was fairly confronted with the
problem given me from this time to solve. I began
at that hour to look it straight in the face. WTat I
in the first place saw was that Mr. Beston was
“ making up ” to our hostess ; what I saw in the
second — what at any rate I believed I saw — was that
she had come a certain distance to meet him ; all of
which would have been simple and usual enough had
not the very things that gave it such a character
been exactly the things I should least have expected.

364

JOHN DELAVOY

Even this first time, as my patron sat there, I made
out somehow that in that position at least he was
sincere and sound. Why should this have surprised
me ? Why should I immediately have asked myself
how he would make it pay ? He was there because
he liked to be, and where was the wonder of his
liking ? There was no wonder in my own, I felt, so
that my state of mind must have been already a sign
of how little I supposed we could like the same
things. This even strikes me, on looking back, as an
implication sufficiently ungraceful of the absence on
Miss Delavoy's part of direct and designed attrac-
tion. I daresay indeed that Mr. Beston’s subjection
would have seemed to me a clearer thing if I had not
had by the same stroke to account for his friend’s.
She liked him, and I grudged her that, though with
the actual limits of mv knowledge of both parties I
had literally to invent reasons for its being a per-
versity, 1 could only in private treat it as one, and
this in spite of Mr. Beston's notorious power to please.
He was the handsomest man in “ literary ” London,
and, controlling the biggest circulation — a body of
subscribers as Vast as a conscript army — he repre-
sented in a manner the modern poetry of numbers.
He was in love, moreover, 01 he thought he was ; that
flushed with a general glow the large surface he pre-
sented. This surface, from my quiet corner, struck
me as a huge tract, a sort of particoloured map, a
great spotted social chart. He abounded in the
names of things, and his mind was like a great stair-
case at a party — you heard them bawled at the top.
He ought to have liked Miss Delavoy because her
name, so announced, sounded well, and I grudged
him, as I grudged the young lady, the higher motive
of an intelligence of her charm. It was a charm so
fine and so veiled that if she had been a piece of
prose or of verse I was sure he would never have
365

JOHN DELAVOY

discovered it. The oddity was that, as the case
stood, he had seen she would " do." I too had seen
it, but then I was a critic : these remarks will sadly
have miscarried if they fail to show the reader how
much of one.

366

Ill

1 mentioned my paper and my disappointment, but
I think it was only in the light of subsequent events
that I could fix an impression of his having, at the
moment, looked a trifle embarrassed. He smote his
brow and took out liis tablets ; he deplored the acci-
dent of which I complained, and promised to look
straight into it. An accident it could only have been,
the result of a particular pressure, a congestion of
work. Of course he had had my letter and had fully
supposed it had been answered and acted on. My
spirits revived at this, and I almost thought the inci-
dent happy when I heard Miss Delavoy herself put a
clear question.

“ It won’t be for April, then, which was what I
had hoped ? "

It was what I had hoped, goodness knew, but if I
had had no anxiety I should not have caught the
low, sweet ring of her own. It made Mr. Boston's
eyes fix her a moment, and, though the thing has as
I write it a fatuous air, I remember thinking that he
must at this instant have seen in her face almost all
his contributor saw. If he did he couldn't wholly
have enjoyed it ; yet he replied genially enough :
“ I'll put it into June.”

“ Oh, June ! ” our companion murmured in a
manner that I took as plaintive — even as exquisite.

Mr. Beston had got up. I had not promised myself

367

JOHN DELAVOY

to sit him out, much less to drive him away ; and at
this sign of his retirement I had a sense still dim, but
much deeper, of being literally lifted by my check.
Even before it was set up my article was somehow
operative, so that I could look from one of my com-
panions to the other and quite magnanimously smile.
“ June will do very well.”

“ Oh, if you say so ! ” Miss Delavoy sighed and

turned away.

“ We must have time for the portrait ; it will
require great care,” Mi. Beston said.

" Oh, please be sure it has the greatest ! ” I
eagerly returned.

But Miss Delavoy took this up, speaking straight
to Mr. Beston. ” I attach no importance to the
portrait. My impatience is all for the article.”

” The article’s very neat. It’s very neat,” Mr.
Beston repeated. ” But vour drawing's our great
prize.”

“ Your great prize,” our young lady rt plied, ” can
only be the thing that tells most about my brother.”

” Well, that's the case with your picture,” Mr.
Beston protested.

“ How can you say that ? My picture tells nothing
in the world but that he never sat for another.”

“ Which is precisely the enormous and final fact ! ”
I laughingly exclaimed.

Mr. Beston looked at me as if in uncertainty and
just the least bit in disapproval ; then he found his
tone. “ It’s the big fact for The Cynosure. I shall
leave you in no doubt of that ! ” he added, to Miss
Delavoy, as he went away.

I was surprised at his going, but I inferred that,
from the pressure at the office, he had no choice ;
and I was at least not too much surprised to guess
the meaning of his last remark to have been that our
hostess must expect a handsome draft. This allusion
368

JOHN DELAVOY

had so odd a grace on a lover’s lips that, even after
the door had closed, it seemed still to hang there
between Miss Delavoy and her second visitor.
Naturally, however, we let it gradually drop ; she
only said with a kind of conscious quickness : “ I'm
really very sorry for the delay.” I thought her
beautiful as she spoke, and I felt that I had taken
with her a longer step than the visible facts explained.
" Yes, it’s a great bore. But to an editor — one doesn’t
show it.”

She seemed amused. “ Are they such queer fish?”

I considered. “You know the great type.”

“ Oh, I don’t know Mr. Beston as an editor.”

“ As what, then ? ”

" Well, as what you call, I suppose, a man of the
world. A very kind, clever one.”

" Of course I see him mainly in the saddle and in
the charge — at the head of his hundred of thousands.
But I mustn’t undermine him,” I added, smiling,
" when lie’s doing so much for me.”

She appeared to wonder about it. " Is it really a
great deal ? ”

"To publish a thing like that ? Yes — as editors
go. They’re all tarred with the same brush.”

"Ah, but he has immense ideas. He goes in for
the best in all departments. That’s his own phrase.
He has often assured me that he’ll never stoop.”

" He wants none but ' first-class stuff.' That’s the
way he has expressed it to me ; but it comes to the
same thing. It’s our great comfort. He’s charming.”

“ He’s charming,” my friend replied ; and I thought
for the moment we had done with Mr. Beston. A
rich reference to him, none the less, struck me as
flashing from her very next words — words that she
uttered without appearing to have noticed any I had
pronounced in the interval. " Does no one, then,
really care for my brother ? ”

369 2 B

JOHN DELAVOY

I was startled by the length of her flight. “ Really
care ? ”

“ No one but you ? Every month your study
doesn’t appear is at this time a kind of slight.”

“ I see what you mean. But of course we're
serious.”

“ Whom do you mean by ' we ? ' ”

“ Well, you and me.”

She seemed to look us all over and not to be
struck with our mass “ And no one else ? No one
else is serious ? ”

“ What I should say is that no one feels the whole
thing, don’t you know ? as much.”

Miss Delavoy hesitated. “Not even so much as
Mr. Boston ? ” And her eyes, as she named him,
waited, to my surprise, for my answer.

I couldn’t quite see why she returned to him, so
that my answer was rather lame. “ Don’t ask me
too many things ; else there are some I shall have
to ask.”

She continued to look at me ; after which she
turned away. “ Then I won’t — for I don't under-
stand him.” She turned away, I say, but the next
moment had faced about with a fresh, inconsequent
question. “ Then why in the world has he cooled
oil ? ”

“ About my paper ? Has lie cooled ? Has he
shown you that otherwise ? ” I asked.

“Than by his delay? Yes, by silence— and by
worse.”

“ What do you call worse ? ”

“ Well, to say of it — and twice over — what he said
just now.”

“ That it’s very ‘ neat ? ’ You don’t think it is ? ”
I laughed.

“ I don’t say it ” ; and with that she smiled. “My
brother might hear ! ”

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JOHN DEL A VO Y

Her tone was such that, while it lingered in the
air, it deepened, prolonging the interval, whatever
point there was in this ; unspoken things therefore
had passed between us by the time I at last brought
out : " He hasn’t read me ! It doesn’t matter,” I
quickly went on ; “ his relation to what I may do
or not do is, for his own purposes, quite complete
enough without that.”

She seemed struck with this. “ Yes, his relation
to almost anything is extraordinary.”

“ His relation to everything ! ” It rose visibly
before us and, as we felt, filled the room with its
innumerable, indistinguishable objects. “ Oh, it’s the
making of him ! ”

She evidently recognised all this, but after a
minute she again broke out : “ You say he hasn’t
read you and that it doesn’t matter. But has he
read my brother ? Doesn’t that matter ? ”

I waved away the thought. “ For what do you
take him, and why in the world should it ? He
knows perfectly what he wants to do, and his post-
ponement is quite in your interest. The reproduction
of the drawing ”

She took me up. “ I hate the drawing ! ”

“ So do I,” I laughed, “ and I rejoice in there being
something on which we can feel so together ! ”

371

IV

What may further have passed between us on this
occasion loses, as I try 10 recall it, all colour in the
light of a communication that I had from her four
days later. It consisted of a note in which she
announced to me that she had heard from Mr.
Beston in terms that troubled her : a letter from
Paris— he had dashed over on business — abruptly
proposing that she herself should, as she quoted,
give him something ; something that her intimate
knowledge of the subject — which was of course John
Delavoy — her rare opportunities for observation and
study, would make precious, would make as unique
as the work of her pencil. He appealed to her to
gratify him in this particular, exhorted her to sit
right down to her task, reminded her that to tell
a loving sister’s talc was her obvious, her highest
duty. She confessed to mystification and invited me
to explain. Was this sudden perception of her duty
a result on Mr. Boston's part of any difference with
myself ? Did he want two papers ? Did lie want
an alternative to mine ? Did he want hers as a
supplement or as a substitute ? She begged instantly
to be informed if anything had happened to mine.
To meet her request I had first to make sure, and
I repaired on the morrow to Mr. Beston’s office in
the eager hope that he was back from Paris. This
hope was crowned ; he had crossed in the night and
372

JOHN DELAVOY

was in his room ; so that on sending up my card
I was introduced to his presence, where I promptly
broke ground by letting him know that I had had
even yet no proof.

“ Oh, yes ! about Delavoy. Well, I've rather ex-
pected you, but you must excuse me if I'm brief.
My absence has put me back ; I’ve returned to
arrears. Then from Paris I meant to write to you,
but even there I was up to my neck. I think, too,
I’ve instinctively held off a little. You won’t like
what I have to say — you can't ! ” He spoke almost
as if I might wish to prove I could. “ The fact is,
you see, your thing won’t do. No — not even a
little.”

Even after Miss Delavoy’s note it was a blow, and
I felt myself turn pale. “ Not even a little ? Why,
I thought you wanted it so ! ”

Mr. Boston just perceptibly braced himself. “ My
dear man, we didn’t want that ! We couldn’t do it.
I’ve every desire to be agreeable to you, but we really
couldn’t.”

1 sat staring. " What in the world’s the matter
with it ? ”

“ Well, it’s impossible. That's what’s the matter
with it.”

” Impossible ? ” There rolled over me the ardent
hours and a great wave of the feeling that I had put
into it.

He hung back but an instant — he faced the music.
" It’s indecent.”

I could only wildly echo him. “ Indecent ? Why,
it’s absolutely, it’s almost to the point of a regular
chill, expository. What in the world is it but
critical ? ”

Mr. Beston’s retort was prompt. " Too critical by
half ! That's just where it is. It says too much.”

“ But what it says is all about its subject.”

373

JOHN DELAVOY

“ I daresay, but I don’t think we want quite so
much about its subject."

I seemed to swing in the void and I clutched,
fallaciously, at the nearest thing. " What you do
want, then — what is that to be about ? "

" That’s for you to find out — it’s not my business
to tell you."

It was dreadful, this snub to my happy sense
that I had found out. " I thought you wanted John
Delavoy. I’ve simply stuck to him."

Mr. Beston gave a dry laugh. " I sho.uld think
you had ! " Then after an instant he turned oracular.
“ Perhaps we wanted him — perhaps we didn’t. We
didn’t at any rate want indelicacy."

" Indelicacy ? ” I almost shrieked. “ Why, it’s
pure portraiture.”

“ * Pure,’ my dear fellow, just begs the question.
It’s most' objectionable — that’s what it is. For
portraiture of such things, at all events, there’s no
place in our scheme."

I speculated. " Your scheme for an account of
Delavoy ? "

Mr. Beston looked as if I trifled. “ Our scheme
for a successful magazine."

“ No place, do I understand you, for criticism ?

No place for the great figures ? If you don’t

want too much detail," I went on, " I recall perfectly
that I was careful not to go into it. What I tried
for was a general vivid picture — which I really
supposed I arrived at. I boiled the man down — I
gave the three or four leading notes. Them I did
try to give with some intensity."

Mr. Beston, while I spoke, had turned about and,
with a movement that confessed to impatience and
even not a little, I thought, to irritation, fumbled on
his table among a mass of papers and other objects ;
after which he had pulled out a couple of drawers.

374

JOHN DELAVOY

Finally he fronted me anew with my copy in his
hand, and I had meanwhile added a word about the
disadvantage at which he placed me. To have made
me wait was unkind ; but to have made me wait for

such news ! I ought at least to have been told

it earlier. He replied to this that he had not at
first had time to read me, and, on the evidence of my
other things, had taken me pleasantly for granted :
he had only been enlightened by the revelation of
the proof. What he had fished out of his drawer was,
in effect, not my manuscript, but the “ galleys ” that
had never been sent me. The thing was all set
up there, and my companion, with eyeglass and
thumb, dashed back the sheets and looked up and
down for places. The proof-reader, he mentioned,
had so waked him up with the blue pencil that he
had no difficulty in finding them. They were all in
his face when he again looked at me. “ Did you
candidly think that we were going to print this ? ”

All my silly young pride in my performance
quivered as if under the lash. " Why the devil else
should I have taken the trouble to write it ? If
you're not going to print it, why the devil did you
ask me for it ? "

“ I didn't ask you. You proposed it yourself.”

“You jumped at it ; you quite agreed you ought
to have it : it comes to the same thing. So indeed
you ought to have it. It's too ignoble, your not
taking up such a man.”

He looked at me hard. " I have taken him up.
I do want something about him, and I’ve got his
portrait there — coming out beautifully.”

“ Do you mean you've taken him up,” I inquired,
” by asking for something of his sister ? Why, in
that case, do you speak as if I had forced on you
the question of a paper ? If you want one you
want one.”

375

JOHN DELAVOY

Mr. Beston continued to sound me. “ How do
you know what I’ve asked of his sister ? ”

“ I know what Miss Delavoy tells me. She let me
know it as soon as she had heard from you.”

“ Do you mean that you’ve just seen her ? ”

'' I’ve not seen her since the time I met you at her
house ; but I had a note from her yesterday. She
couldn’t understand your appeal — in the face of
knowing what I’ve done myself.”

Something seemed to tell me at this instant that
she had not yet communicated with Mr. Beston, but
that he wished me not to know she hadn’t. It came
out still more in the temper with which he presently
said : "I want what Miss Delavoy can do, but I don’t
want this kind of thing ! ” And he shook my proof
at me as if for a preliminary to hurling it.

I took it from him, to show I anticipated his
violence, and, profoundly bewildered, I turned over
the challenged pages. They grinned up at me with
the proof-reader’s shocks, but the shocks, as my eye
caught them, bloomed on the spot like flowers. I
didn't feel abased — so many of my good things
came back to me. “ What on earth do you seriously
mean ? This thing isn't bad. It's awfully good —
it’s beautiful.”

With an odd movement he plucked it back again,
though not indeed as if from any new conviction.
He had had after all a kind of contact with it
that had made it a part of his stock. ” I da resay
it's clever. For the kind of thing it is, il's as
beautiful as you like. It’s simply not our kind.”
He seemed to break out afresh. ” Didn't you know
more ? ”

I waited. ” More what ? ”

He in turn did the same. “ More everything.
More about Delavoy. The whole point was that
I thought you did.”

376

JOHN DELAVOY

I fell back in my chair. “ You think my article
shows ignorance ? I sat down to it with the sense
that 1 knew more than any one.”

Mr. Beston restored it again to my hands. “You've
kept that pretty well out of sight then. Didn't you
get anything out of her ? It was simply for that
I addressed you to her.”

I took from him with this, as well, a silent state-
ment of what it had not been for. “ I got every-
thing in the wide world I could. We almost worked
together, but what appeared was that all her own
knowledge, all her own view, quite fell in with what
I had already said. There appeared nothing to
subtract or to add.”

He looked hard again, not this time at me, but
at the document in my hands. “You mean she has
gone into all that — seen it just as it stands there ? ”

“ If I’ve still,” I replied, “ any surprise left, it's
for the surprise your question implies. You put our
heads together, and you've surely known all along
that they've remained so. She told me a month ago
that she had immediately let you know the good she
thought of what I had done.”

Mr. Beston very candidly remembered, and I could
make out that if he flushed as he did so it was
because what most came back to him was his own
simplicity. “ I see. That must have been why I
trusted you — sent you, without control, straight off

to be set up. But now that 1 see you ! ” he

went on.

“ You're surprised at her indulgence ? ”

Once more he snatched at the record of my
rashness — once more he turned it over. Then he
read out two or three paragraphs. “ Do you mean
she has gone into all that ? ”

“ My dear sir, what do you take her for ? There
wasn't a line we didn't thresh out, and our talk

377

JOHN DELAVOY

wouldn't for either of us have been a bit interesting
if it hadn't been really frank. Have you to learn at
this time of day,” I continued, “ what her feeling is
about her brother’s work ? She’s not a bit stupid.
She has a kind of worship for it.”

Mr. Beston kept his eyes on one of my pages.
“ She passed her life with him and was extremely
fond of him.”

“ Yes, and she has the point of view and no end
of ideas. She’s tremendously intelligent.”

Our friend at last looked up at me, but T scarce
knew what to make of his expression. “ Then she'll
do me exactly what I want.”

“ Another article, you mean, to replace nunc ? ”

“ Of a totally different sort. Something the public
wilt stand.” His attention reverted to my proof, and
he suddenly reached out for a pencil. He made a
great dash against a block of my prose and placed
the page before me. “ Do you pretend to me they'll
stand that ? ”

“ That ” proved, as I looked at it, a summary of the
subject, deeply interesting, and treated, as I thought,
with extraordinary art, of the work to which I gave
the highest place in my author’s array. I took it in,
sounding it hard for some hidden vice, but with
a frank relish, in effect, of its lucidity ; then I
answered : “ If they won't stand it, what will they
stand ? ”

Mr. Beston looked about and put a few objects on
his table to rights. “They won’t stand anvtliing.”
He spoke with such pregnant brevity as to make his
climax stronger. “ And quite right too ! I’m right,
at any rate ; I can’t plead ignorance. I know where
I am, and I want to stay there. That single page
would have cost me five thousand subscribers.”

“ Why, that single page is a statement of the very

JOHN DELAVOY

He turned sharp round at me. " Very essence of
what ? ”

" Of my very topic, damn it.”

” Your very topic is John Dclavoy.”

“ And what’s his very topic ? Am I not to attempt
to utter it ? What under the sun else am I writing
about ? ”

“ You’re not writing in The Cynosure about the
relations of the sexes. With those relations, with
the question of sex in any degree, I should suppose
you would already have seen that we have nothing
whatever to do. If you want to know what our
public won’t stand, there you have it.”

I seem to recall that 1 smiled sweetly as I took
it. “I don't know, I think, what you mean by those
phrases, which strike me as too empty and too silly,
and of a nature therefore to be more deplored than
any, I’m positive, that I use in my analysis. I don't
use a single one that even remotely resembles them.
I simply try to express my author, and if your public
won't stand his being expressed, mention to me
kindly the source of its interest in him.”

Mr. Beston was perfectly ready. “ He’s all the
rage with the clever people — that’s the source. The
interest of the public is whatever a clever article may
make it.”

“ I don’t understand you. How can an article be
clever, to begin with, and how can it make anything
of anything, if it doesn’t avail itself of material ? ”

” There is material, which I'd hoped you’d use.
Miss Delavoy has lots of material. I don't know
what she has told you, but I know what she has told
me.” He hung fire but an instant. “ Quite lovely
things.”

“ And have you told her ? ”

” Told her what ? ” he asked as I paused.

“ The lovely things you've just told me.”

379

JOHN DELAVOY

Mr. Beston got up ; folding the rest of my proof
together, he made the final surrender with more
dignity than I had looked for. " You can do with this
what you like.” Then as he reached the door with
me : " Do you suppose that I talk with Miss Delavoy
on such subjects ? I answered that he could leave
that to me — I shouldn't mind so doing ; and I recall
that before I quitted him something again passed
between us on the question of her drawing. “ What
we want,” he said, “ is just the really nice thing, the
pleasant, right thing to go with it. That drawing’s
going to take ! ”

380

V

A few minutes later I had wired to our young lady
that, should I hear nothing from her to the contrary,
I would come to her that evening. I had other
affairs that kept me out ; and on going home I
found a word to the effect that though she should
not be free after dinner she hoped for my presence
at five o'clock : a notification betraying to me that
the evening would, by arrangement, be Mr. Boston's
hour and that she wished to see me first. At five
o'clock 1 was there, and as soon as I entered the
room 1 perceived two things. One of these was that
she had been highly impatient ; the other was that
she had not heard, since my call on him, from Mr.
Boston, and that her arrangement with him therefore
dated from earlier. The tea-service was by the fire
— she herself was at the window ; and I am at a loss
to name the particular revelation that I drew fiom
this fact of her being restless on general grounds.
My telegram had fallen in with complications at
which 1 could only guess ; it had not found her quiet ;
she was living in a troubled air. But her wonder
leaped from her lips. " He does want two ? "

I had brought in my proof with me, putting it in
my hat and my hat on a chair. “ Oh, no — he wants
only one, only yours.”

Her wonder deepened. “ He won't print ? ”

“ My poor old stuff ! He returns it with thanks.”

381

JOHN DELAVOY

“ Returns it ? When he had accepted it ! ”

“ Oh, that doesn’t prevent — when he doesn't like
it.”

“ But he does ; he did. He liked it to me. He
called it ‘ sympathetic.’ ”

“ IIe only meant that you are — perhaps even that
1 myself am. He hadn't read it then. He read it
but a day or two ago, and horror seized him.”

Miss Delavoy dropped into a chair. “ Horror ? ”

" I don't know how to express to you the fault he
finds with it.” 1 had gone to the fire, and I looked
to where it peeped out of my hat ; my companion
did the same, and her face showed the pain she
might have felt, in the street, at sight of the victim
of an accident. “ It appears it’s indecent.”

She sprang from her chair. “ To describe my
brother ? ”

“ As I've described him. That, at any rate, is how
my account sins. What I’ve said is unprintable.”
I leaned against the chimney-piece with a serenity
of which, I admit, I was conscious ; I rubbed it in
and felt a private joy in watching my influence.

” Then what have you said ? ”

“ You know perfectly. You heard my thing from
beginning to end. You said it was beautiful.”

She remembered as I looked at her ; she showed
all the things she called back. ” It was beautiful.”
I went over and picked it up ; I came back with it
to the fire. “ It was the best thing ever said about
him,” she went on. ” It was the finest and * v vest.”

" Well, then ! ” I exclaimed.

” But what have you done to it since ? ”

“ I haven’t touched it since.”

“ You've put nothing else in ? ”

" Not a line — not a syllable. Don’t you remember
how you warned me against spoiling it ? It’s of the
thing we read together, liked together, went over and

382

JOHN DELAVOY

over together ; it's of this dear little serious thing
of good sense and good faith " — and I held up my
roll of proof, shaking it even as Mr. Beston had shaken
it — “ that he expresses that opinion."

She frowned at me with an intensity that, though
bringing me no pain, gave me a sense of her own.
" Then that’s why he has asked me ? "

“ To do something instead. But something pure.
You, he hopes, won’t be indecent."

She sprang up, more mystified than enlightened ;
she had pieced things together, but they left the
question gaping. " Is he mad ? What is he talking
about ? ”

" Oh, 1 know — now. Has he specified what he
wants of you ? "

She thought a moment, all before me. " Yes — to
be very ‘ personal.’ "

“ Precisely. You mustn’t speak of the work."

She almost glared. " Not speak of it ? ”

“ That's indecent."

" My brother’s work ? ”

" To speak of it."

She took this from me as she had not taken any-
thing. “ Then how can I speak of him at all ? — how
can I articulate ? He was his work."

" Certainly he was. But that’s not the kind of
truth that will stand in Mr. Beston’s way. Don’t
you know what he means by wanting you to be
personal ? ”

In the way she looked at me there was still for a
moment a dim desire to spare him — even perhaps a
little to save him. None the less, after an instant,
she let herself go. " Something horrible ? ”

" Horrible ; so long, that is, as it takes the place
of something more honest and really so much more
clean. He wants — what do they call the stuff ? —
anecdotes, glimpses, gossip, chat ; a picture of his

383

JOHN DELAVOY

*

' home life,’ domestic habits, diet, dress, arrangements
— all his little ways and little secrets, and even, to
better it still, all your own, your relations with him,
your feelings about him, his feelings about you : both
his and yours, in short, about anything else you can
think of. Don’t you see what I mean ? ” She saw
so well that, in the dismay of it, she grasped my arm
an instant, half as if to steady herself, half as if to
stop me. But she couldn't stop me. “ He wants you
just to write round and round that portrait.''

She was lost in the reflexions I had stirred,* in
apprehensions and indignations that slowly surged
and spread ; and for a moment she was unconscious
of everything else. “ What portrait ? ”

“ Why, the beautiful one you did. The beautiful
one you gave him.”

“ Did I give it to him ? Oh, yes ! " It came back
to her, but this time she blushed red, and I saw what
had occurred to her. It occurred, in fact, at the same
instant to myself. " Ah, par exempic,” she cried,
” he shan’t have it ! ”

I couldn’t help laughing. “ My dear young lady,
unfortunately he has got it ! ”

” He shall send it back. He shan’t use it.”

” I’m afraid he is using it,” I replied. “ I’m
afraid lie has used it. They’ve begun to work on it.”

She looked at me almost as if I were Mr. Boston.
“ Then they must stop working on it.” Something
in her decision somehow thrilled me. “ Mr. Beston
must send it straight back. Indeed I’ll wire to him
to bring it to-night.”

” Is he coming to-night ? ” I ventured to inquire.

She held her head very high. “ Yes, he’s coming
to-night. It’s most happy ! ” she bravely added, as
if to forestall any suggestion that it could be any-
thing else.

I thought a moment ; first about that, then about

384

JOHN DELAVOY

something that presently made me say : “Oh, well,
if he brings it back ! ”

She continued to look at me. “ Do you mean you
doubt his doing so ? ”

I thought again. “ You'll probably have a stiff
time with him."

She made, for a little, no answer to this but to
sound me again with her eyes ; our silence, however,
was carried off by her then abruptly turning to her
tea-tray and pouring me out a cup. “ Will you do
me a favour ? " she asked as I took it.

“ Any favour in life."

“ Will you be present ? "

“ Present ? ” — I failed at first to imagine.

" When Mr. Beston comes."

It was so much more than I had expected that
I of course looked stupid in my surprise. " This
evening — here ? "

“ This evening — here. Do you think my request
very strange ? "

I pulled myself together. “ How can I tell when
I’m so awfully in the dark ? ”

“ In the dark ? " She smiled at me as if I

were a person who carried such lights !

“ About the nature, I mean, of your friendship."

" With Mr. Beston ? " she broke in. Then in the
wonderful way that women say such things : “It has
always been so pleasant."

“ Do you think it will be pleasant for me ? " I
laughed.

“ Our friendship ? I don’t care whether it is or
not ! "

“ I mean what you’ll have out with him — for of
course you will have it out. Do you think it will be
pleasant for him ? "

“To find you here — or to see you come in ? I
don’t feel obliged to think. This is a matter in
385 2 c

JOHN DELAVOY

which I now care for no one but my brother — for
nothing but his honour. I stand only on that."

I can’t say how high, with these words, she struck
me as standing, nor how the look that she gave me
with them seemed to make me spring up beside her.
We were at this elevation together a moment. “ I'll
do anything in the world you say."

" Then please come about nine."

That struck me as so tantamount to saying “ And
please therefore go this minute " that I immediately
turned to the door. Before I passed it, however, I
gave her time to ring out clear : "I know what I’m
about ! ” She proved it the next moment by follow-
ing me into the hall with the request that I would
leave her my proof. I placed it in her hands, and if
she knew what she was about I wondered, outside,
what I was.

386

VI

I daresay it was the desire to make this out that,
in the evening, brought me back a little before my
time. Mr. Beston had not arrived, and it's worth
mentioning — for it was rather odd — that while we
waited for him I sat with my hostess in silence. She
spoke of my paper, which she had read over — but
simply to tell me she had done so ; and that was
practically all that passed between us for a time at
once so full and so quiet that it struck me neither
as short nor as long. We felt, in the matter, so
indivisible that we might have been united in some
observance or some sanctity — to go through some-
thing decorously appointed. Without an observa-
tion we listened to the door-bell, and, still without
one, a minute later, saw the person we expected
stand there and show his surprise. It was at me he
looked as he spoke to her.

“I’m not to see you alone ? ”

“Not just yet, please,” Miss Delavoy answered.
“Of what has suddenly come between us this gentle-
man is essentially a part, and I really think he'll be
less present if we speak before him than if we attempt
to deal with the question without him.” Mr. Beston
was amused, but not enough amused to sit down,
and we stood there while, for the third time, my
proof-sheets were shaken for emphasis. “ I’ve been
reading these over,” she said as she held them up.

387

JOHN DELAVOY

Mr. Beston, on what he had said to me of them,
could only look grave ; but he tried also to look
pleasant, and I foresaw that, on the whole, he would
really behave well. “ They’re remarkably clever.”

“ And yet you wish to publish instead of them
something from so different a hand ? ”

He smiled now very kindly. “ If you'll only let
me have it ! Won't you let me have it ? I’m sure
you know exactly the thing I want.”

“ Oh, perfectly ! ”

“ I’ve tried to give her an idea of it,” I threw in.

Mr. Beston promptly saw his way to make this a
reproach to me. “ Then, after all, you had one
yourself ? ”

“ I think I couldn’t have kept so clear of it if I
hadn’t had ! ” I laughed.

“ I'll write you something,” Miss Delavoy went
on, “if you’ll print this as it stands.” My proof was
still in her keeping.

Mr. Beston raised his eyebrows. “ Print two ?
Whatever do I want with two ? What do I want
with the wrong one if I can get the beautiful
right ? ”

She met this, to my surprise, with a certain gaiety.
“ It’s a big subject — a subject to be seen from different
sides. Don’t you want a full, a various treatment ?
Our papers will have nothing in common.”

“ I should hope not ! ” Mr. Beston said good-
humouredly. “ You have command, dear lady, of a
point of view too good to spoil. It so happ -ns that
your brother has been really less handled than any
one, so that there’s a kind of obscurity about him,
and in consequence a kind of curiosity, that it seems
to me quite a crime not to work. There's just the
perfection, don’t you know ? of a little sort of mystery
— a tantalising demi-jour .” He continued to smile
at her as if he thoroughly hoped to kindle her, and
388

JOHN DELAVOY

it was interesting at that moment to get this vivid
glimpse of his conception.

I could see it quickly enough break out in Miss
Delavoy, who sounded for an instant almost assenting.
“ And you want the obscurity and the mystery, the
tantalising demi-jour, cleared up ? ”

" I want a little lovely, living thing ! Don’t be
perverse,” he pursued, “ don’t stand in your own light
and in your brother’s and in this young man's — in
the long run, and in mine too and in every one’s :
just let us have him out as no one but you can bring
him and as, by the most charming of chances and a
particular providence, he has been kept all this time
just on purpose for you to bring. Really, you know ”
— his vexation would crop up — “ one could howl to
see such good stuff wasted ! ”

" Well,” our young lady returned, “ that holds
good of one thing as well as of another. I can
never hope to describe or express my brother as
these pages describe and express him ; but, as I
tell you, approaching him from a different direction,
I promise to do my very best. Only, my condition
remains.”

Mr. Beston transferred his eyes from her face to
the little bundle in her hand, where they rested with
an intensity that made me privately wonder if it
represented some vain vision of a snatch defeated in
advance by the stupidity of his having suffered my
copy to be multiplied. “ My printing that ? ”

“ Your printing this.”

Mr. Beston wavered there between us : I could
make out in him a vexed inability to keep us as
distinct as he would have liked. But he was trium-
phantly light. “ It's impossible. Don’t be a pair
of fools ! ”

“ Very well, then,” said Miss Delavoy ; ” please
send me back my drawing.”

389

JOHN DELAVOY

“ Oh dear, no ! ” Mr. Beston laughed. “ Your
drawing we must have at any rate.”

“ Ah, but I forbid you to use it ! This gentleman
is my witness that my prohibition is absolute."

“ Was it to be your, witness that you sent for the
gentleman ? You-' take immense precautions ! ” Mr.
Beston exclaimed. Before she could retort, however,
he came back to his strong point. " Do you coolly
ask of me to sacrifice ten thousand subscribers ? "

The number, I noticed, had grown since the
morning, but Miss Delavoy faced it boldly. " If you
do, you’ll be well rid of them. They must be ignoble,
your ten thousand subscribers."

He took this perfectly. “You dispose of them
easily ! Ignoble or not, what I have to do is to keep
them and if possible add to their number ; not to get
rid of them."

“ You’d rather get rid of my poor brother instead ?"

“ I don’t get rid of him. I pay him a signal
attention. Reducing it to the least, I publish his
portrait."

“ His portrait — the only one worth speaking of ?
Why, you turn it out with horror."

" Do you call the only one worth speaking of that
misguided effort ? " And, obeying a restless impulse,
he appeared to reach for my tribute ; not, I think,
with any conscious plan, but with a vague desire in
some way again to point his moral with it.

I liked immensely the motion with which, in reply
to this, she put it behind her : her gesture exm cssed
so distinctly her vision of her own lesson. From
that moment, somehow, they struck me as forgetting
me, and I seemed to see them as they might have
been alone together ; even to see a little what, for
each, had held and what had divided them. 1
remember how, at this, I almost held my breath,
effacing myself to let them go, make them show me
390

JOHN DELAVOY

whatever they might. “ It’s the only one/’ she
insisted, " that tells, about its subject, anything
that’s any one’s business. If you really want John
Delavoy, there he is. If you don’t want him, don't
insult him with an evasion and a pretence. Have at
least the courage to say that you're afraid of him ! ”

I figured Mr. Beston here as much incommoded ;
but all too simply, doubtless, for he clearly held on,
smiling through flushed discomfort and on the whole
bearing up. “ Do you think I’m afraid of you ? ”
He might forget me, but he would have to forget me
a little more to yield completely to his visible impulse
to take her hand. It was visible enough to herself
to make her show that she declined to meet it, and
even that his effect on her was at last distinctly
exasperating. Oh, how I saw at that moment that
in the really touching good faith of his personal
sympathy he didn’t measure his effect ! If he had
done so he wouldn’t have tried to rush it, to carry
it off with tenderness. He dropped to that now so
rashly that I was in truth sorry for him. “You
could do so gracefully, so naturally what we want.
What we want, don’t you see ? is perfect taste. I
know better than you do yourself how perfect yours
would be. I always know better than people do
themselves.’’ He jested and pleaded, getting in,
benightedly, deeper. Perhaps I didn’t literally hear
him ask in the same accents if she didn’t care for him
at all, but I distinctly saw him look as if he were on
the point of it, and something, at any rate, in a lower
tone, dropped from him that he followed up with the
statement that if she did even just a little she would
help him.

39i

VII

She made him wait a deep minute for her answer
to this, and that gave me time to read into it what
he accused her of failing to do. I recollect that I
was startled at their having come so far, though I was
reassured, after a little, by seeing that he had come
much the furthest. I had now I scarce know what
amused sense of knowing our hostess so much better
than he. “ I think you strangely inconsequent," she
said at last. "If you associate with — what you speak
of— the idea of help, does it strike you as helping
me to treat in that base fashion the memory I most
honour and cherish ? ’’ As I was quite sure of what
he spoke of I could measure the force of this challenge.
" Have you never discovered, all this time, that my
brother’s work is my pride and my joy ? ”

" Oh, my dear thing ! " — and Mr. Beston broke into
a cry that combined in the drollest way the attempt
to lighten his guilt with the attempt to deprecate
hers. He let it just flash upon us that, should he
be pushed, he would show as — well, scandalise^

The tone in which Miss Delavoy again addressed
him offered a reflexion of this gleam. " Do you
know what my brother would think of you ? "

He was quite ready with his answer, and there was
no moment in the whole business at which I thought
so well of him. " I don’t care a hang what your
brother would think ! ”

392

JOHN DELAVOY

“ Then why do you wish to commemorate him ? "
“ How can you ask so innocent a question ? It
isn't for him.”

“You mean it’s for the public ? ”

“ It’s for the magazine,’’ he said with a noble
simplicity.

“ The magazine is the public,” it made me so far
forget myself as to suggest.

“ You’ve discovered it late in the day ! Yes,” he
went on to our companion, “ I don’t in the least mind
saying I don’t care. I don't — I don’t ! ” he repeated
with a sturdiness in which I somehow recognised
that he was, after all, a great editor. He looked at
me a moment as if he even guessed what I saw, and,
not unkindly, desired to force it home. " I don't
care for anybody. It’s not my business to care.
That's not the way to run a magazine. Except of
course as a mere man ! ” — and he added a smile for
Miss Delavoy. He covered the whole ground again.
“ Your reminiscences would make a talk ! ”

She came back from the greatest distance she had
yet reached. “ My reminiscences ? ”

“To accompany the head.” He must have been
as tender as if I had been away. “ Don’t 1 see how
you’d do them ? ”

She turned off, standing before the fire and looking
into it ; after which she faced him again. “ If you'll
publish our friend here, I'll do them.”

“ Why are you so awfully wound up about our
friend here ? ”

“ Read his article over — with a little intelligence —
and your question will be answered.”

Mi. Beston glanced at me and smiled as if with
a loyal warning ; then, with a good conscience, he
let me have it. “ Oh, damn his article ! ”

I was struck with her replying exactly what I
should have replied if I had not been so detached.

393

JOHN DELAVOY

“ Damn it as much as you like, but publish it.” Mr.
Beston, on this, turned to me as if to ask me if I had
not heard enough to satisfy me : there was a visible
offer in his face to give me -more if I insisted. This
amounted to ail appeal to me to leave the room at
least for a minute ; and it was perhaps from the fear
of what might pass between us that Miss Delavoy
once more took him up. “ If my brother’s as vile as
you say ! ”

" Oh, I don’t say he s vile ! ” he broke in.

“You only say /am!” I commented.

“ You’ve entered so into him,” she replied to me,
“ that it comes to the same thing. And Mr. Beston
says further that out of this unmentionableness he
wants somehow to make something — some money or
some sensation.”

“ My dear lady,” said Mr. Beston, “ it’s a very great
literary figure ! ”

“ Precisely. You advertise yourself with it be-
cause it’s a very great literary figure, and it’s a very
great literary figure because it wrote very great
literary things that you wouldn’t for the world allow
to be intelligibly or critically named. So you bid
for the still more striking tribute of an intimate
picture — an unveiling of God knows what ! — without
even having the pluck or the logic to say on what
ground it is that you go in for naming him at all.
Do you know, dear Mr. Beston,” she asked, “ that
you make me very sick ? I count on receiving the
portrait,” she concluded, “ by to-morrow evening at
latest.”

I felt, before this speech was over, so sorry for her
interlocutor that I was on the point of asking her if
she mightn't finish him without my help. But I had
lighted a flame that was to consume me too, and
I was aware of the scorch of it while I watched Mr.
Beston plead frankly, if tacitly, that, though there

394

JOHN DELAVOY

was something in him not to be finished, she must
yet give him a moment and let him take his time to
look about him at pictures and books. He took it
with more coolness than I ; then he produced his
answer. “ You shall receive it to-morrow morning
if you'll do what I asked the last time.” I could see
more than he how the last time had been overlaid
by what had since come up ; so that, as she opposed
a momentary blank, I felt almost a coarseness in his
recall of it with an ” Oh, you know — you know ! ”
Yes, after a little she knew, and I need scarcely
add that I did. I felt, in the oddest way, by this
time, that she was conscious of my penetration and
wished to make, me, for the loss now so clearly beyond
repair, the only compensation in her power. This
compensation consisted of her showing me that she
was indifferent to my having guessed the full extent
of the privilege that, on the occasion to which he
alluded, she had permitted Mr. Beston to put before
her. The balm for my wound was therefore to see
what she resisted. She resisted Mr. Beston in more
ways than one. ” And if I don't do it ? " she
demanded.

“ I’ll simply keep your picture ! "

“ To what purpose if you don't use it ? ”

" To keep it is to use it,” Mr. Beston said.

“ He has only to keep it long enough,” I added,
and with the intention that may be imagined, ” to
bring you round, by the mere sense of privation, to
meet him on the other ground.”

Miss Delavoy took no more notice of this speech
than if she had not heard it, and Mr. Beston showed
that he had heard it only enough to show, more
markedly, that he followed her example. “ I’ll do
anything, I’ll do everything for you in life,” he
declared to her, “ but publish such a thing as that.”
She gave in all decorum to this statement the

395

JOHN DELAVOY

minute of concentration that belonged to it ; but
her analysis of the matter had foi sole effect to
make her at last bring out, not with harshness, but
with a kind of wondering . pity : “I think you're
really very dreadful ! "

“ In what esteem then, Mr. Beston," I asked, “ do
you hold John Delavoy's work ? ”

He rang out clear. “ As the sort of thing that’s
out of our purview ! " If for a second he had hesitated
it was partly, I judge, with just resentment at my so
directly addressing him, and partly, though he wished
to show our friend that he fairly faced the question,
because experience had not left him in such a case
without two or three alternatives. He had already
made plain indeed that he mostly preferred the
simplest.

“ Wonderful, wonderful purview ! " I quite sin-
cerely, or at all events very musingly, exclaimed.

“ Then, if you could ever have got one of his
novels ? ” Miss Delavoy inquired.

He smiled at the way she put it ; it made such an
image of the attitude of The Cynosure. But he was
kind and explicit. “ There isn’t one that wouldn't
have been beyond us. We could never have run him.
We could never have handled him. We could nev^r,
in fact, have touched him. We should have dropped
to — oh, Lord ! " He saw the ghastly figure he
couldn't name — he brushed it away with a shudder.

I turned, on this, to our companion. “ I wish
awfully you’d do what he asks!” She strvd an
instant, mystified ; then I quickly explained to
which of his requests I referred. “ I mean I wish
you'd do the nice familiar chat about the sweet
home-life. You might make it inimitable, and, upon
my word, I’d give you for it the assistance of my
general lights. The thing is — don't you see ? — that
it would put Mr. Beston in a grand position. Your

39 6

JOHN DELAVOY

position would be grand/' I hastened to add as I
looked at him, “ because it would be so admirably
false." Then, more seriously, I felt the impulse even
to warn him. “ I don't think you’re quite aware of
what you’d make it. Are you really quite conscious ? ”

I went on with a benevolence that struck him, I was
presently to learn, as a depth of fatuity.

He was to show once more that he was a rock.
“ Conscious ? Why should I be ? Nobody’s con-
scious.”

He was splendid ; yet before I could control it I
had risked the challenge of a “ Nobody ? ”

“ Who's anybody ? The public isn’t ! ”

“ Then why are you afraid of it ? ” Miss Delavoy
demanded.

“ Don’t ask him that,” I answered ; “ you expose
yourself to his telling you that, if the public isn't
anybody, that’s still more the case with your
brother.”

Mr. Boston appeared to accept as a convenience
this somewhat inadequate protection ; he at any
rate under cover of it again addressed us lucidly.
“ There’s only one false position — the one you seem
so to wish to put me in.”

I instantly met him. “ That of losing ? ”

” That of losing ! ”

“ Oh, fifty thousand — yes. And they wouldn’t

see anything the matter ? ”

” With the position,” said Mr. Best on, ” that you
qualify, I neither know nor care why, as false.”
Suddenly, in a different tone, almost genially, he
continued : “ For what do you take them ? ”

For what indeed ? — but it didn't signify. “ It’s
enough that I take you — for one of the masters.”
It’s literal that as he stood there in his florid beauty
and complete command I felt his infinite force, and,
with a gush of admiration, wondered how, for our

397

JOHN DELAVOY

young lady, there could be at such a moment another
man. “ We represent different sides/’ I rather
lamely said. However, I picked up. “ It isn't a
question of where we are, but of what. You’re not
on a side — you are a side. You’re the right one.
What a misery,” I pursued, “ for us not to be ‘ on ’
you ! ”

His eyes showed me for a second that he yet saw
how our not being on him did just have for it that
it could facilitate such a speech ; then they rested
afresh on Miss Delavoy, and that brought him back
to firm ground. “ I don’t think you can imagine how
it will come out.”

He was astride of the portrait again, and presently
again she had focussed him. “If it does come

out ! ” she began, poor girl ; but it was not to

take her far.

“ Well, if it does ? ”

“ He means what will you do then ? ” I observed,
as she had nothing to say.

“ Mr. Beston will see,” she at last replied with a
perceptible lack of point.

He took this up in a flash. “ My dear young lady,
it's you who'll see ; and when you’ve seen you'll
forgive me. Only wait till you do ! ” He was
already at the door, as if he quite believed in what
he should gain by the gain, from this moment, of
time. He stood there but an instant — he looked
from one of us to the other. “It will be a ripping
little thing ! ” he remarked ; and with that he left
us gaping.

39 8

VIII

The first use 1 made of our rebound was to say with
intensity : “ What will you do if he does ? ”

“ Does publish the picture ? ” There was an
instant charm to me in the privacy of her full collapse
and the sudden high tide of our common defeat.
“ What can I ? It’s all very well ; but there’s
nothing to be done. I want never to see him again.
There’s only something,” she went on, “ that you
can do.”

“ Prevent him ? — get it back ? I'll do, be sure,
my utmost ; but it will be difficult without a row.”

“ What do you mean by a row ? ” she asked.

” I mean it will be difficult without publicity. I
don't think we want publicity.”

She turned this over. “ Because it will advertise
him ? ”

“ His magnificent energy. Remember what I just
now told him. He’s the right side.”

“ And we’re the wrong ! ” she laughed. “ We
mustn’t make that known — I see. But, all the
same, save my sketch ! ”

T held her hands. “ And if I do ?

“ Ah, get it back first ! ” she answered, ever so
gently and with a smile, but quite taking them away.

I got it back, alas ! neither first nor last ; though
indeed at the end this was to matter, as I thought
and as I found, little enough. Mr. Beston rose to his

399

JOHN DELAVOY

full height and was not to abate an inch even on my
offer of another article on a subject notoriously
unobjectionable. The only portrait of John Dclavoy
was going, as he had said, to take, and nothing was
to stand in its way: I besieged his office, I waylaid
his myrmidons, I haunted his path, I poisoned, I tried
to flatter myself, his life ; I wrote him at any rate
letters by the dozen and showed him up to his friends
and his enemies. The only thing I didn’t do was to
urge Miss Dclavoy io write to her solicitors or to the
newspapers. The final result, of course, of what I
did and what I didn’t was to create, on the subject of
the sole copy of so rare an original, a curiosity that,
by the time The Cynosure appeared with the repro-
duction, made the month's sale, as I was destined to
learn, take a tremendous jump. The portrait of
John Delavoy, prodigiously “ paragraphed ” in ad-
vance and with its authorship flushing through, was
accompanied by a page or two, from an anonymous
hand, of the pleasantest, liveliest comment. The
press was genial, the success immense, current criti-
cism had never flowed so full, and it was universally
felt that the handsome thing had been done. The
process employed by Mr. Beston had left, as he had
promised, nothing to be desired ; and the sketch
itself, the next week, arrived in safety, and with only
a smutch or two, by the post. I placed my article,
naturally, in another magazine, but was disappointed,
I confess, as to what it discoverably did in literary
circles for its subject. This ache, however was
muffled. There was a worse victim than I, and there
was consolation of a sort in our having out together
the question of literary circles. The great orb of
The Cynosure, wasn't that a literary circle ? By the
time we had fairly to face this question we had
achieved the union that — at least for resistance or
endurance — is supposed to be strength.

400

THE THIRD PERSON

401

2 D

I

When, a few years since, two good ladies, previously
not intimate nor indeed more than slightly acquainted,
found themselves domiciled together in the small but
ancient town of Marr, it was as a result, naturally, of
special considerations. They bore the same name
and were second cousins ; but their paths had not
hitherto crossed ; there had not been coincidence of
age to draw them together ; and Miss Frush, the
more mature, had spent much of her life abroad. She
was a bland, shy, sketching person, whom fate had
condemned to a monotony- -triumphing over variety
--of Swiss and Italian pensions ; in any one of which,
with her well -fastened hat, her gauntlets and her
stout boots, her camp-stool, her sketch-book, her
Tauchnitz novel, she would have served with peculiar
propriety as a frontispiece to the natural history of
the English old maid. She would have struck you
indeed, poor Miss Frush, as so happy an instance of
the type that you would perhaps scarce have been
able to equip her with the dignity of the individual.
This was what she enjoyed, however, for those
brought nearer — a very insistent identity, once even
of prettiness, but which now, blanched and bony,
timid and inordinately queer, with its utterance all
vague interjection and its aspect all eyeglass and
teeth, might be acknowledged without inconvenience
and deplored without reserve. Miss Amy, her kins-
403

THE THIRD PERSON

woman, who, ten years her junior, showed a different
figure — such as, oddly enough, though formed almost
wholly in English air, might have appeared much
more to betray a foreign influence — Miss Amy was
brown, brisk and expressive : when really young she
had even been pronounced showy. She had an
innocent vanity on the subject of her foot, a member
which she somehow regarded as a guarantee of her
wit, or at least of her good taste. Even had it not
been pretty she flattered herself it would have been
shod : she would never— -no, never, like Susan —
have given it up. Her bright brown eye was com-
paratively bold, and she had accepted Susan once for
all as a frump. She even thought her, and silently
deplored her as, a goose. But she was none the less
herself a lamb.

They had benefited, this innocuous pair, under the
will of an old aunt, a prodigiously ancient gentle-
woman, of whom, in her later time, it had been given
them, mainly by the office of others, to sec almost
nothing ; so that the little property they came in for
had the happy effect of a windfall. Each, at least,
pretended to the other that she had never dreamed
— as in truth there had been small encouragement
for dreams in the sad character of what they now
spoke of as the late lady's “ dreadful entourage.”
Terrorised and deceived, as they considered, by her
own people, Mrs. Frush was scantily enough to have
been counted on for an act of almost inspired justice.
The good luck of her husband's nieces was thi.t she
had really outlived, for the most part, their ill-wishers
and so, at the very last, had died without the blame
of diverting fine Frush property from fine Frush use.
Property quite of her own she had done as she liked
with ; but she had pitied poor expatriated Susan and
had remembered poor unhusbanded Amy, though
lumping them together perhaps a little roughly in
404

THE THIRD PERSON

her final provision. Her will directed that, should
no other arrangement be more convenient to her
executors, the old house at Marr might be sold for
their joint advantage. What befell, however, in the
event, was that the two legatees, advised in due
course, took an early occasion — and quite without
concert — to judge their prospects on the spot. They
arrived at Marr, each on her own side, and they were
so pleased with Marr that they remained. So it was
that they met : Miss Amy, accompanied by the office-
boy of the local solicitor, presented herself at the door
of the house to ask admittance of the caretaker. But
when the door opened it offered to sight not the care-
taker, but an unexpected, unexpecting lady in a very
old waterproof, who held a long-handled eyeglass
very much as a child holds a rattle. Miss Susan,
already in the field, roaming, prying, meditating in
the absence on an errand of the woman in charge,
offered herself in this manner as in settled possession ;
and it was on that idea that, through the eyeglass,
the cousins viewed each other with some penetration
even before Amy came in. Then at last when Amy
did come in it was not, any more than Susan, to go
out again.

It would take us loo far to imagine what might
have happened had Mrs. Frusli made it a condition
of her benevolence that the subjects of it should
inhabit, should live at peace together, under the roof
she left them ; but certain it is that as they stood
there they had at the same moment the same un-
prompted thought. Each became aware on the spot
that the dear old house itself was exactly what she,
and exactly what the other, wanted ; it met in
perfection their longing for a quiet harbour and an
assured future ; each, in short, was willing to take
the other in order to get the house. It was therefore
not sold ; it was made, instead, their own, as it stood,
405

THE THIRD PERSON

with the dead lady’s extremely “ good ” old appur-
tenances not only undisturbed and undivided, but
piously reconstructed and infinitely admired, the
agents of her testamentary purpose rejoicing mean-
while to see the business so simplified. They might
have had their private doubts — or their wives might
have ; might cynically have predicted the sharpest
of quarrels, before three months were out, between
the deluded yoke-fellows, and the dissolution of the
partnership with every circumstance of recrimination.
All that need be said is that such prophets would
have prophesied vulgarly. The Misses Frush wort'
not vulgar ; they had drunk deep of the cup of single-
ness and found it prevailingly bitter ; they were not
unacquainted with solitude and sadness, and they
recognised with due humility the supreme oppor-
tunity of their lives. By the end of three months,
moreover, each knew the worst about the other.
Miss Amy took her evening nap before dinner, an
hour at which Miss Susan could never sleep — it was
so odd ; whereby Miss Susan took heis after that
meal, just at the hour when Miss Amy was keenest
for talk. Miss Susan, erect and unsupported, had
feelings as to the way in which, in almost any posture
that could pass for a seated one, Miss Amy managed
to find a place in the small of her back for two out of
the three sofa-cushions — a smaller place, obviously,
than they had ever been intended to fit.

But when this was said all was said ; they con-
tinued to have, on either side, the pleasant conscious-
ness of a personal soil, not devoid of fragmentary
ruins, to dig in. They had a theory that their lives
had been immensely different, and each appeared
now to the other to have conducted her career so
perversely only that she should have an unfamiliar
range of anecdote for her companion’s ear. Miss
Susan, at foreign pensions, had met the Russian, the
406

THE THIRD PERSON

Polish, the Danish, and even an occasional flower of
the English, nobility, as well as many of the most
extraordinary Americans, who, as she said, had made
everything of her and with whom she had remained,
often, in correspondence ; while Miss Amy, after all
less conventional, at the end of long years of London,
abounded in reminiscences of literary, artistic and
even — Miss Susan heard it with bated breath —
theatrical society, under the influence of which she
had written — there, it came out ! — a novel that had
been anonymously published and a play that had
been strikingly type-copied. Not the least charm,
clearly, of this picturesque outlook at Marr would be
the support that might be drawn from it for getting
back, as she hinted, with " general society ” bravely
sacrificed, to “ real work.’' She had in her head
hundreds of plots — with which the future, accord-
ingly, seemed to bristle for Miss Susan. The latter,
on her side, was only waiting for the wind to go
down to take up again her sketching. The wind at
Marr was often high, as was natural in a little old
huddled, red-roofed, historic south-coast town which
had once been in a manner mistress, as the cousins
reminded each other, of the “ Channel,” and from
which, high and dry on its hilltop though it might be,
the sea had not so far receded as not to give, con-
stantly, a taste of temper. Miss Susan came back
to English scenery with a small sigh of fondness to
which the consciousness of Alps and Apennines only
gave more of a quaver ; she had picked out her
subjects and, with her head on one side and a sense
that they were easier abroad, sat sucking her water-
colour brush and nervously — perhaps even a little
inconsistently — waiting and hesitating. What had
happened was that they had, each for herself, re-
discovered the country ; only Miss Amy, emergent
from Bloomsbury lodgings, spoke of it as primroses
407

THE THIRD PERSON

and sunsets, and Miss Susan, rebounding from the
Arno and the Reuss, called it, with a shy, synthetic
pride, simply England.

The country was at any rate in the house with
them as well as in the little green girdle and in the
big blue belt. It was in the objects and relics that
they handled together and wondered over, finding in
them a ground for much inferred importance and
invoked romance, stuffing large stories into very
small openings and pulling every faded bell-rope
that might jingle rustily into the past. They were
still here in the presence, at all events, of their
common ancestors, as to whom, more than ever
before, they took only the best for granted. Was
not the best, for that matter — the best, that is, of
little melancholy, middling, disinherited Marr —
seated in every stiff chair of the decent old house
and stitched into the patchwork of every quaint old
counterpane ? Two hundred years of it squared
themselves in the brown, panelled pailour, creaked
patiently on the wide staircase and bloomed her-
baceously in the red -walled garden. There was
nothing any one had ever done or been at Marr that
a Frush hadn’t done it or been it. Yet they wanted
more of a picture and talked themselves into the
fancy of it there were portraits — half-a-dozen, com-
paratively recent (they called 1800 comparatively
recent), and something of a trial to a descendant
who had copied Titian at the Pitti ; but they were
curious of detail and would have liked to p 'oplc a
little more thickly their backward space, to set it up
behind their chairs as a screen embossed with figures.
They threw off theories and small imaginations, and
almost conceived themselves engaged in researches ;
all of which made for pomp and circumstance. Their
desire was to discover something, and, emboldened
by the broader sweep of wing of her companion, Miss
408

THE THIRD PERSON

Susan herself was not afraid of discovering something
bad. Miss Amy it was who had first remarked, as a
warning, that this was what it might all lead to. It
was she, moreover, to whom they owed the formula
that, had anything very bad ever happened at Marr,
they should be sorry if a Frush hadn’t been in it.
This was the moment at which Miss Susan’s spirit
had reached its highest point : she had declared, with
her odd, breathless laugh, a prolonged, an alarmed
or alarming gasp, that she should really be quite
ashamed. And so they rested a while ; not saying
quite how far they were prepared to go in crime —
not giving the matter a name. But there would have
been little doubt for an observer that each supposed
the other to mean that she not only didn't draw the
line at murder, but stretched it so as to take in —
well, gay deception. If Miss Susan could conceivably
have asked whether Don Juan had ever touched at
that port, Miss Amy would, to a certainty, have
wanted to know by way of answer at what port he
had not touched. It was only unfortunately true
that no one of the portraits of gentlemen looked at
all like him and no one of those of ladies suggested
one of his victims.

At last, none the less, the cousins had a find,
came upon a box of old odds and ends, mainly
documentary ; partly printed matter, newspapers
and pamphlets yellow and grey with time, and, for
the rest, epistolary — several packets of letters, faded,
scarce decipherable, but clearly sorted for preserva-
tion and tied, with sprigged ribbon of a far-away
fashion, into little groups. Marr, below ground, is
solidly founded — underlaid with great straddling
cellars, sound and dry, that are like the groined
crypts of churches and that present themselves to the
meagre modem conception as the treasure-chambers
of stout merchants and bankers in the old bustling
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days. A recess in the thickness of one of the walls
had yielded up, on resolute investigation — that of
the local youth employed for odd jobs and who had
happened to explore in this direction on his own
account — a collection of rusty superfluities among
which the small chest in question had been dragged
to light. It produced of course an instant impression
and figured as a discovery ; though indeed as rather
a deceptive one on its having, when forced open,
nothing better to show, at the best, than a quantity
of rather illegible correspondence. The good ladies
had naturally had for the moment a fluttered hope
of old golden guineas — -a miser’s hoard ; perhaps even
of a hatful of those foreign coins of old-fashioned
romance, ducats, doubloons, pieces of eight, as are
sometimes found to have come to hiding, from over
seas, in ancient ports. But they had to accept their
disappointment— which they sought to do by making
the best of the papers, by agreeing, in other words, to
regard them as wonderful. Well, they were, doubt-
less, wonderful ; which didn’t prevent them, however,
from appearing to be, on superficial inspection, also
rather a weary labyrinth. Baffling, at any rate, to
Miss Susan’s unpractised eyes, the little pale-ribboned
packets were, for several evenings, round the fire,
while she luxuriously dozed, taken in hand by Miss
Amy ; with the result that on a certain occasion
when, toward nine o’clock. Miss Susan woke up, she
found her fellow-labourer fast asleep. A ^lightly
irritated confession of ignorance of the Gothic char-
acter was the further consequence, and the upshot
of this, in turn, was the idea of appeal to Mr.
Patten. Mr. Patten was the vicar and was known
to interest himself, as such, in the ancient annals of
Marr ; in addition to which — and to its being even
held a little that his sense of the affairs of the hour
was sometimes sacrificed to such inquiries — he was
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THE THIRD PERSON

a gentleman with a humour of his own, a flushed
face, a bushy eyebrow and a black wide-awake worn
sociably askew. “ He will tell us," said Amy Frush,
" if there’s anything in them."

“ Yet if it should be,” Susan suggested, " anything
we ma3m’t like ? "

" Well, that’s just what I’m thinking of," returned
Miss Amy in her offhand way. “ If it's anything we
shouldn’t know "

“ We’ve only to tell him not to tell us ? Oh,
certainly,” said mild Miss Susan. She took upon
herself even to give him that warning when, on the
invitation of our friends, Mr. Patten came to tea and
to talk things over ; Miss Amy sitting by and raising
no protest, but distinctly promising herself that, what-
ever there might be to be known, and however
objectionable, she would privately get it out of their
initiator. She found herself already hoping that it
would be something too bad for her cousin — too bad
for any one else at all — to know, and that it most
properly might remain between them. Mr. Patten,
at sight of the papers, exclaimed, perhaps a trifle
ambiguously, and by no means clerically, “ My eye,
what a lark ! " and retired, after three cups of tea, in
an overcoat bulging with his spoil.

411

II

At ten o’clock that evening the pair separated, as
usual, on the upper landing, outside their respective
doors, for the night ; but Miss Amy had hardly set
down her candle on her dressing-table before she
was startled by an extraordinary sound, which
appeared to proceed not only from her companion’s
room, but from her companion’s throat. It was
something she would have described, had she ever
described it, as between a gurgle and a shriek, and
it brought Amy Frush, after an interval of stricken
stillness that gave her just time to say to herself
“ Some one under her bed ! ” breathlessly and bravely
back to the landing. She had not reached it, how-
ever, before her neighbour, bursting in, met her and
stayed her.

“ There's some one in my room ! ”

They held each other. “ But who ? ”

“ A man.”

“ Under the bed ? ”

“ No — just standing there.”

They continued to hold each other, bat they
rocked. “ Standing ? Where ? How ? ”

“ Why, right in the middle — before my dressing-
glass.”

Amy’s blanched face by this time matched her
mate's, but its terror was enhanced by speculation.
“To look at himself ? ”

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THE THIRD PERSON

" No — with his back to it. To look at me” poor
Susan just audibly breathed. “ To keep me off,”
she quavered. “ In strange clothes — of another age ;
with his head on one side.”

Amy wondered. ” On one side ? ”

“ Awfully ! ” the refugee declared while, clinging
together, they sounded each other.

This, somehow, for Miss Amy, was the convincing
touch ; and on it, after a moment, she was capable
of the effort of darting back to close her own door.
“ You’ll remain then with me.”

“ Oh ! ” Miss Susan wailed with deep assent ;
quite as if, had she been a slangy person, she would
have ejaculated “ Rather ! ” So they spent the
night together ; with the assumption thus marked,
from the first, both that it would have been vain to
confront their visitor as they didn’t even pretend to
each other that they would have confronted a house-
breaker ; and that by leaving the place at his mercy
nothing worse could happen than had already
happened. It was Miss Amy’s approaching the door
again as with intent ear and after a hush that had
represented between them a deep and extraordinary
interchange — it was this that put them promptly
face to face with the real character of the occurrence.
“ Ah,” Miss Susan, still under her breath, porten-
tously exclaimed, ” it isn’t any one ! ”

“No ” — her partner was already able magnificently

to take her up. “ It isn’t any one ”

“ Who can really hurt us ” — Miss Susan completed
her thought. And Miss Amy, as it proved, had been
so indescribably prepared that this thought, before
morning, had, in the strangest, finest way, made for
itself an admirable place with them. The person the
elder of our pair had seen in her room was not — well,
just simply was not any one in from outside. He
was a different thing altogether. Miss Amy had felt
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THE THIRD PERSON

“ Oh, I hope it wasn’t for a trifle ! ” Miss Susan
strangely tittered.

“Yes, of course one would like that, while he was
about it — well, it had been, as they say,” Mr. Patten
laughed, “ rather for a sheep than for a lamb ! ”

“ Did they hang at that time for a sheep ? ” Miss
Amy wondcringly asked.

It made their friend laugh again. “ The question’s
whether he did ! But we'll find out. Upon my
word, you know, I quite want to myself. I’m awfully
busy, but I think I can promise you that you shall
hear. You don't mind ? ” he insisted.

“ I think we could bear anything ,” said Miss Amy.

Miss Susan gazed at her, on this, as for reference
and appeal. “ And what is he, after all, at this time
of day, to us ? ”

Her kinswoman, meeting the eyeglass fixedly,
spoke with gravity. “ Oh, an ancestor’s always an
ancestor.”

“ Well said and well felt, dear lady ! ” the vicar
declared. “ Whatever they may have done ”

“ It isn't every one,” Miss Amy replied, “that has
them to be ashamed of.”

“ And we’re not ashamed yet ! ” Miss Frush jerked
out.

“ Let me promise you then that you shan't be.
Only, for I am busy,” said Mr. Patten, “ give me
time.”

“ Ah, but we want the truth ! ” they cried with
high emphasis as he quitted them. They were much
excited now.

He answered by pulling up and turning round as
short as if his professional character had been
challenged. “ Isn’t it just in the truth — and the
truth only — that I deal ? ”

This they recognised as much as his love of a
joke, and so they were left there together in the
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THE THIRD PERSON

pleasant, if slightly overdone, void of the square,
which wore at moments the air of a conscious demon-
stration, intended as an appeal, of the shrinkage of the
population of Marr to a solitary cat. They walked
on after a little, but they waited till the vicar was ever
so far away before they spoke again ; all the more
that their doing so must bring them once more to a
pause. Then they had a long look. “ Hanged ! ”
said Miss Amy — yet almost exultantly.

This was, however, because it was not she who

had seen. “ That's why his head " but Miss

Susan faltered.

Her companion took it in. “Oh, has such a
dreadful twist ? "

“ It is dreadful ! ” Miss Susan at last dropped,
speaking as if she had been present at twenty
executions.

There would have been no saying, at any rate,
what it didn’t evoke from Miss Amy. “ It breaks
their neck,’’ she contributed after a moment.

Miss Susan looked away. “ That’s why, I suppose,
the head turns so fearfully awry. It’s a most peculiar
effect.”

So peculiar, it might have seemed, that it made
them silent afresh. “ Well then, 1 hope he killed
some one ! ” Miss Amy broke out at last.

Her companion thought. “ Wouldn’t it depend
on whom ? ”

“ No ! ” she returned with her characteristic brisk-
ness — a briskness that set them again into motion.

That Mr. Patten was tremendously busy was
evident indeed, as even by the end of the week he
had nothing more to impart. The whole thing
meanwhile came up again — on the Sunday after-
noon ; as the younger Miss Frush had been quite
confident that, from one day to the other, it must.
They went inveterately to evening church, to the
417 2 E

THE THIRD PERSON

close of which supper was postponed ; and Miss
Susan, on this occasion, ready the first, patiently
awaited her mate at the foot of the stairs. Miss
Amy at last came down, buttoning a glove, rustling
tlic tail of a frock and looking, as her kinswoman
always thought, conspicuously young and smart.
There was no one at Marr, she held, who dressed
like her ; and Miss Amy, it must be owned, had
also settled to this view of Miss Susan, though taking
it in a different spirit. Dusk had gathered, but our
frugal pair were alwa}^ tardy lighters, and the grey
close of day, in which the elder lady, on a high-backed
hall chair, sat with hands patiently folded, had for
all cheer the subdued glow — always subdued — of the
small fire in the drawing-room, visible through a
door that stood open. Into the drawing-room Miss
Amy passed in search of the prayer-book she had
laid down there after morning church, and from it,
after a minute, without this volume, she returned
to her companion. There was something in her
movement that spoke — spoke for a moment so largely
that nothing more was said till, with a quick un-
animity, they had got themselves straight out of
the house. There, before the door, in the cold, still
twilight of the winter’s end, while the church bells
rang and the windows of the great choir showed
across the empty square faintly red, they had it out
again. But it was Miss Susan herself, this time, who
had to bring it.

" He’s there ? ”

“ Before the fire — with his back to it.”

“ Well, now you sec ! ” Miss Susan exclaimed with
elation and as if her friend had hitherto doubted her.

“Yes, I sec — and what you mean.” Miss Amy
was deeply thoughtful.

“ About his head ? ”

“ It is on one side,” Miss Amy went on. “ It makes
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THE THIRD PERSON

him ” she considered. But she faltered as if still

in his presence.

“ It makes him awful ! ” Miss Susan murmured.
" The way,” she softly moaned, “ he looks at you ! ”

Miss Amy, with a glance, met this recognition.
“ Yes — doesn’t he ? ” Then her eyes attached them-
selves to the red windows of the church. “ But it
means something.”

" The Lord knows what it means ! ” her associate
gloomily sighed. Then, after an instant, “ Did he
move ? ” Miss Susan asked.

“ No — and I didn’t.”

” Oh, I did ! ” Miss Susan declared, recalling her
more precipitous retreat.

“ I mean I took my time. I waited.”

“ To see him fade ? ”

Miss Amy for a moment said nothing. “ He
doesn’t fade. That’s it”

“ Oh, then you did move ! ” her relative rejoined.

Again for a little she was silent. “ One has to.
But I don’t know what really happened. Of course
I came back to you. What I mean is that I took
him thoroughly in. He’s young,” she added.

“ But he’s bad ! ” said Miss Susan.

“ He's handsome ! ” Miss Amy brought out after
a moment. And she showed herself even prepared
to continue : “ .Splendidly.”

” ‘ Splendidly ' ! — with his neck broken and with
that terrible look ? ”

“ It’s just the look that makes him so. It’s the
wonderful eyes. They mean something,” Amy Frush
brooded.

She spoke with a decision of which Susan presently
betrayed the effect. “ And what do they mean ? ”

Her friend had stared again at the glimmering
windows of St. Thomas of Canterbury. “ That it’s
time we should get to church.”

419

Ill

The curate that evening did duty alone ; but on
the morrow the vicar called and, as soon as he got
into the room, let them again have it. “ He was
hanged for smuggling ! ”

They stood there before him almost cold in their
surprise and diffusing an air in which, somehow, this
misdemeanour sounded out as the coarsest of all.
“ Smuggling ?” Miss Susan disappointedly echoed —
as if it presented itself to the first chill of their
apprehension that he had then only been vulgar.

"Ah, but they hanged for it freely, you know, and
I was an idiot for not having taken it, in his case,
for granted. If a man swung, hcieabouts, it was
mostly for that. Don't you know it's on that we
stand here to-day, such as we are — on the fact of
what our bold, bad forefathers were not afraid of ?
It’s in the floors we walk on and under the rooi^
that cover us. They smuggled so hard that they
never had time to do anything else ; and if they broke
a head not their own it was only in the awkwardness
of landing their brandy-kegs. I mean, dear ladies,"
good Mr. Patten wound up, " no disrespect to your
forefathers when I tell you that — as I’ve rather been
supposing that, like all the rest of us, you were aware
— they conveniently lived by it."

Miss Susan wondered — visibly almost doubted.
“ Gentlefolks ? ”

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THE THIRD PERSON

“ It was the gentlefolks who were the worst.”

" They must have been the bravest ! ” Miss Amy
interjected. She had listened to their visitor’s free
explanation with a rapid return of colour. “ And
since if they lived by it they also died for it ”

“ There’s nothing at all to be said against them ?
I quite agree with you,” the vicar laughed, " for all
my cloth ; and I even go so far as to say, shocking
as you may think me, that we owe them, in our
shabby little shrunken present, the sense of a bustling
background, a sort of undertone of romance. They
give us ” — he humorously kept it up, verging perilously
near, for his cloth, upon positive paradox — “ our little
handful of legend and our small possibility of ghosts.”
He paused an instant, with his lighter pulpit manner,
but the ladies exchanged no look. They were in
fact already, with an immense revulsion, carried quite
as far away. “ Every penny in the place, really,
that hasn't been earned by subtler — not nobler — arts
in our own virtuous time, and though it’s a pity
there are not more of ’em : every penny in the place
was picked up, somehow, by a clever trick, and at
the risk of your neck, when the backs of the king's
officers were turned. It's shocking, you know, what
I’m saying to you, and I wouldn't say it to every
one, but I think of some of the shabby old things
about us, that represent such pickings, with a sort
of sneaking kindness — as of relics of our heroic age.
What are we now ? We were at any rate devils of
fellows then ! ”

Susan Frush considered it all solemnly, struggling
with the spell of this evocation. ” But must we forget
that they were wicked ? ”

“ Never ! ” Mr. Patten laughed. ” Thank you,
dear friend, for reminding me. Only I’m worse than
they ! ”

“ But would you do it ? ”

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THE THIRD PERSON

“ Murder a coastguard ? ” The vicar scratched

his head.

“ I hope,” said Miss Amy rather surprisingly,
“ you’d defend yourself.” And she gave Miss Susan
a superior glance. “ / would ! ” she distinctly
added.

Her companion anxiously took it up. “ Would
you defraud the revenue ? ”

Miss Amy hesitated but a moment ; then with
a strange laugh, which she covered, however, by
turning instantly away, “ Yes ! ” she remarkably
declared.

Their visitor, at this, amused and amusing, eagerly
seized her arm. “ Then may I count on you on the
stroke of midnight to help me ? ”

“ To help you ? ”

“ To land the last new Tauchnitz.”

She met the proposal as one whose fancy had
kindled, while her cousin watched them as if they had
suddenly improvised a drawing-room charade. “ A
service of danger ? ”

“ Under the cliff — when you see the lugger
stand in ! ”

“ Armed to the teeth ? ”

“ Yes — but invisibly. Your old waterproof ! ”

“ Mine is new. I'll take Susan’s ! ”

This good lady, however, had her reserves.
" Mayn’t one of them, all the same — here and there
—have been sorry ? ”

Mr. Patten wondered. " For the jobs he muffed ? ”

“For the wrong — as it was wrong — he did.”

“ ‘ One ’ of them ? ” She had gone too far, for the
vicar suddenly looked as if he divined in the question
a reference.

They became, however, as promptly unanimous in
meeting this danger, as .to which Miss Susan in
particular showed an inspired presence of mind.

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THE THIRD PERSON

“ Two of them ! " she sweetly smiled. “ May not
Amy and I ? ”

“ Vicariously repent ? ” said Mr. Patten. “ That
depends — for the true honour of Marr — on how you
show it.”

“ Oh, we shan't show it ! ” Miss Amy cried.

“Ah, then,” Mr. Patten returned, ” though atone-
ments, to be efficient, are supposed to be public, you
may do penance in secret as much as you please ! ”

“ Well, I shall do it,” said Susan Frush.

Again, by something in her tone, the vicar’s
attention appeared to be caught. ” Have you then
in view a particular form ? ”

” Of atonement ? ” She coloured now, glaring
rather helplessly, in spite of herself, at her companion.
“ Oh, if you’re sincere you'll always find one.”

Amy came to her assistance. ” The way she often
treats me has made her — though there's after all no
harm in her — familiar with remorse. Mayn’t we, at
any rate,” the younger lady continued, ” now have
our letters back ? ” And the vicar left them with the
assurance that they should receive the bundle on the
morrow.

They were indeed so at one as to shrouding their
mystery that no explicit agreement, no exchange
of vows, needed to pass between them ; they only
settled down, from this moment, to an unshared
possession of their secret, an economy in the use
and, as may even be said, the enjoyment of it,
that was part of their general instinct and habit of
thrift. It had been the disposition, the practice, the
necessity of each to keep, fairly indeed to clutch,
everything that, as they often phrased it, came their
way ; and this was not the first time such an influence
had determined for them an affirmation of property
in objects to which ridicule, suspicion, or some other
inconvenience, might attach. It was their simple
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THE THIRD PERSON

philosophy that one never knew of what service an
odd object might not be ; and there were days now
on which they felt themselves to have made a better
bargain with their aunt’s executors than was witnessed
in those law-papers which they had at first timorously
regarded as the record of advantages taken of them
in matters of detail. They had got, in short, more
than was vulgarly, more than was even shrewdly
supposed — such an indescribable unearned increment
as might scarce more be divulged as a dread than as
a delight. They drew together, old-maidishly, in a
suspicious, invidious grasp of the idea that a dread
of their very own — and blissfully not, of course, that
of a failure of any essential supply — might, on nearer
acquaintance, positively turn to a delight.

Upon some such attempted consideration of it, at
all events, they found themselves embarking after
their last interview with Mr. Patten, an understanding
conveyed between them in no redundancy of discussion,
no flippant repetitions nor profane recurrences, yet
resting on a sense of added margin, of appropriated
history, of liberties taken with time and space, that
would leave them prepared both for the worst and
for the best. The best would be that something
that would turn out to their advantage might prove
to be hidden about the place ; the worst would be
that they might find themselves growing to depend
only too much on excitement. They found themselves
amazingly reconciled, on Mr. Patten’s inf orn lotion,
to the particular character thus fixed on their \ i-.itor ;
they knew by tradition and fiction that even the
highwaymen of the same picturesque age were often
gallant gentlemen ; therefore a smuggler, by such a
measure, fairly belonged to the aristocracy of crime.
When their packet of documents came back from the
vicarage Miss Amy, to whom her associate continued
to leave them, took them once more in hand ; but
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THE THIRD PERSON

with an effect, afresh, of discouragement and languor
— a headachy sense of faded ink, of strange spelling
and crabbed characters, of allusions she couldn’t follow
and parts she couldn’t match. She placed the tattered
papers piously together, wrapping them tenderly in a
piece of old figured silken stuff ; then, as solemnly as
if they had been archives or statutes or title-deeds,
laid them away in one of the several small cupboards
lodged in the thickness of the wainscoted walls.
What really most sustained our friends in all ways
was their consciousness of having, after all — and so
contrariwise to what appeared — a man in the house.
It removed them from that category of the manless
into which no lady really lapses till every issue is
closed. Their visitor was an issue — at least to the
imagination, and they arrived finally, under provoca-
tion, at intensities of flutter in which they felt them-
selves so compromised by his hoverings that they
could only consider with relief the fact of nobody’s
knowing.

The real complication indeed at first was that
for some weeks after their talks with Mr. Patten the
hoverings quite ceased ; a circumstance that brought
home to them in some degree a sense of indiscretion
and indelicacy. They hadn’t mentioned him, no ;
but they had come perilously near it, and they had
doubtless, at any rate, too recklessly let in the light
on old buried and sheltered things, old sorrows and
shames. They roamed about the house themselves
at times, fitfully and singly, when each supposed the
other out or engaged ; they paused and lingered,
like soundless apparitions, in corners, doorways,
passages, and sometimes suddenly met, in these
experiments, with a suppressed start and a mute
confession. They talked of him practically never ;
but each knew how the other thought — all the more
that it was (oh yes, unmistakably !) in a manner
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THE THIRD PERSON

different from her own. They were together, none
the less, in feeling, while, week after week, he failed
again to show, as if they had been guilty of blowing,
with an effect of sacrilege, on old gathered silvery
ashes. It frankly came out for them that, possessed
as they so strangely, yet so ridiculously were, they
should be able to settle to nothing till their conscious-
ness was yet again confirmed. Whatever the subject
of it might have for them of fear or favour, profit or
loss, he had taken the taste from everything else. He
had converted them into wandering ghosts. At last,
one day, with nothing they could afterwards perceive
to have determined it, the change came- came, as
the previous splash in their stillness had come, by
the pale testimony of Miss Susan.

She waited till after breakfast to speak of it — or
Miss Amy, rather, waited to hear her ; for she showed
during the meal the face of controlled commotion that
her comrade already knew and that must, with the
game loyally played, serve as preface to a disclosure.
The younger of the friends really watched the elder,
over their tea and toast, as if seeing lief for the first
time as possibly tortuous, suspecting in her some
intention of keeping back what had happened.
What had happened was that the image of the
hanged man had reappeared in the night ; yet only
after they had moved together to the drawing-room
did Miss Amy learn the facts.

" I was beside the bed — in that low chair ; about "
- -since Miss Amy must know — " to take off nij right
shoe. I had noticed nothing before, and had had
time partly to undress - -had got into my wrapper.
So, suddenly — as I happened to look — there he was.
And there,” said Susan Frush, " he stayed.”

“ But where do you mean ? ”

” In the high-backed chair, the old flowered chintz
‘ ear-cliair ’ beside the chimney.”

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THE THIRD PERSON

“ All night ? — and you in your wrapper ? ” Then
as if this image almost challenged her credulity,
“ Why didn't you go to bed ? ” Miss Amy inquired.

" With a — a person in the room ? ” her friend
wonderfully asked ; adding after an instant as with
positive pride : “ I never broke the spell ! ”

“ And didn’t freeze to death ? ”

“Yes, almost. To say nothing of not having slept,
I can assure you, one wink. I shut my eyes for
long stretches, but whenever I opened them he
was still there, and I never for a moment lost
consciousness.”

Miss Amy gave a groan of conscientious sym-
pathy. “ So that you're feeling now of course half
dead.”

Her companion turned to the chimney -glass a wan,
glazed eye. “ 1 daresay I am looking impossible.”

Miss Amy, after an instant, found herself still con-
scientious. “ You are.” Her own eyes strayed to
the glass, lingering there while she lost herself in
thought. “ Really,” she reflected with a certain

dryness, ” if that’s the kind of thing it’s to be ! ”

there would seem, in a word, to be no withstanding
it for either. Why, she afterwards asked herself in
secret, should the restless spirit of a dead adventurer
have addressed itself, in its trouble, to such a person
as her queer, quaint, inefficient housemate ? It was
in her, she dumbly and somewhat sorely argued, that
an unappeased soul of the old race should show a
confidence. To this conviction she was the more
directed by the sense that Susan had, in relation to
the preference shown, vain and foolish complacencies.
She had her idea of what, in their prodigious predica-
ment, should be, as she called it, “ done,” and that was
a question that Amy from this time began to nurse
the small aggression of not so much as discussing
with her. She had certainly, poor Miss Frush, a
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THE THIRD PERSON

new, an obscure reticence, and since she wouldn’t
speak first she should have silence to her fill. Miss
Amy, however, peopled the silence with conjectural
visions of her kinswoman's secret communion. Miss
Susan, it was true, showed nothing, on any particular
occasion, more than usual ; but this was just a part
of the very felicity that had begun to harden and
uplift her. Days and nights hereupon elapsed without
bringing felicity of any order to Amy Frush. If she
had no emotions it was, she suspected, because Susan
had them all ; and — it would have been preposterous
had it not been pathetic — she proceeded rapidly to
hug the opinion that Susan was selfish and even
something of a sneak. Politeness, between them,
still reigned, but confidence had flown, and its place
was taken by open ceremonies and confessed pre-
cautions. Miss Susan looked blank but resigned ;
which maintained again, unfortunately, her superior
air and the presumption of her duplicity. Her manner
was of not knowing where her friend's shoe pinched ;
but it might have been taken by a jaundiced eye
for surprise at the challenge of her monopoly. The
unexpected resistance of her nerves was indeed a
wonder : was that then the result, even for a shaky
old woman, of shocks sufficiently repeated ? Miss
Amy brooded on the rich inference that, if the first
of them didn’t prostrate and the rest didn’t under-
mine, one might keep them up as easily as — well,
say an unavowed acquaintance or a private comm erce
of letters. She was startled at the comparison into
which she fell — but what was this but an intrigue
like another ? And fancy Susan carrying one on !
That history of the long night hours of the pair in
the two chairs kept before her — for it was always
present — the extraordinary measure. Was the
situation it involved only grotesque — or was it quite
grimly grand ? It struck her as both ; but that was
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THE THIRD PERSON

the case with all their situations. Would it be in
herself, at any rate, to show such a front ? She put
herself such questions till she was tired of them. A
few good moments of her own would have cleared
the air. Luckily they were to come.

429

IV

It was on a Sunday morning in April, a day
brimming over with the turn of the season. She had
gone into the garden before church ; they cherished
alike, with pottering intimacies and opposed theories
and a wonderful apparatus of old gloves and trowels
and spuds and little botanical cards on sticks, this
feature of their establishment, where they could still
differ without fear and agree without diplomacy, and
which now, with its vernal promise, threw beauty
and gloom and light and space, a great good-natured
ease, into their wavering scales. She was dressed for
church ; but when Susan, who had, from a window,
seen her wandering, stooping, examining, touching,
appeared in the doorway to signify a like readiness,
she suddenly felt her intention checked. “ Thank
you,” she said, drawing near ; ‘‘I think that, though
I’ve dressed, I won’t, after all, go. Please, therefore,
proceed without me.”

Miss Susan fixed her. “ You're not well ? ”

“Not particularly. I shall be better — the morn-
ing’s so perfect — here.”

“ Are you really ill ? ”

" Indisposed ; but not enough so, thank you, for
you to stay with me.”

“ Then it has come on but just now ? ”

“ No — I felt not quite fit when I dressed. But it
won’t do.”

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THE THIRD PERSON

“Yet you'll stay out here ? ”

Miss Amy looked about. “ It will depend ! ”

Her friend paused long enough to have asked
what it would depend on, but abruptly, after this
contemplation, turned instead and, merely throwing
over her shoulder an “ At least take care of yourself ! ’’
went rustling, in her stiffest Sunday fashion, about
her business. Miss Amy, left alone, as she clearly
desired to be, lingered a while in the garden, where
the sense of things was somehow made still more
delicious by the sweet, vain sounds from the church
tower ; but by the end of ten minutes she had
returned to the house. The sense of things was not
delicious there, for what it had at last come to was
that, as they thought of each other what they couldn’t
say, all their contacts w r ere hard and false. The real
wrong was in what Susan thought — as to which she
was much too proud and too soie to undeceive her.
Miss Amy went vaguely to the drawing-room.

They sat as usual, after church, at their early
Sunday dinner, face to face ; but little passed between
them save that Miss Amy felt better, that the curate
had preached, that nobody else had stayed away,
and that everybody had asked why Amy had. Amy,
hereupon, satisfied everybody by feeling well enough
to go in the afternoon ; on which occasion, on the
other hand — and for reasons even less luminous than
those that had operated with her mate in the morning
— Miss Susan remained within. Her comrade came
back late, having, after church, paid visits ; and
found her, as daylight faded, seated in the drawing-
room, placid and dressed, but without so much as
a Sunday book — the place contained whole shelves of
such reading — in her hand. She looked so as if
a visitor had just left her that Amy put the question :
“ Has any one called ? ”

“ Dear, no ; I’ve been quite alone.”

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THE THIRD PERSON

This again was indirect, and it instantly determined
for Miss Amy a conviction — a conviction that, on her
also sitting down just as she was and in a silence
that prolonged itself, promoted in its turn another
determination. The April dusk gathered, and still,
without further speech, the companions sat there.
But at last Miss Amy said in a tone not quite her
commonest : “ This morning he came — while you

were at church. I suppose it must have been really
— though of course I couldn’t know it — what I was
moved to stay at home for.” She spoke now — out
of her contentment — as if to oblige with explanations.

But it was strange how Miss Susan met her. “You
stay at home for him ? 1 don’t ! ” She fairly laughed

at the triviality of the idea.

Miss Amy was naturally struck by it and after
an instant even nettled. ” Then why did you do so
this afternoon ? ”

" Oh, it wasn’t for that ! ” Miss Susan lightly
quavered. She made her distinction. “ I really
wasn’t well.”

At this her cousin brought it out. ” But he has
been with you ? ”

“ My dear child,” said Susan, launched un-
expectedly even to herself, “ he’s with me so often

that if I put myself out for him ! ” But as if at

sight of something that showed, through the twilight,
in her friend’s face, she pulled herself up.

Amy, however, spoke with studied stillness.
” You’ve ceased then to put yourself out You
gave me, you remember, an instance of how you
once did ! ” And she tried, on her side, a laugh.

“ Oh yes — that was at first. But I've seen such a
lot of him since. Do you mean you hadn’t ? ” Susan
asked. Then as her companion only sat looking at
her : ” Has this been really the first time for you —
since we last talked ? ”

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THE THIRD PERSON

Miss Amy for a minute said nothing. “ You’ve
actually believed me ”

“To be enjoying on your own account what I
enjoy ? How couldn’t I, at the very least,” Miss
Susan cried — “ so grand and strange as you must
allow me to say you’ve struck me? "

Amy hesitated. “ I hope I’ve sometimes struck
you as decent ! ”

But it was a touch that, in her friend’s almost
amused preoccupation with the simple fact, happily
fell short. “ You’ve only been waiting for what
didn’t come ? ”

Miss Amy coloured in the dusk. “ It came, as I
tell you, to-day.”

“ Better late than never ! ” And Miss Susan
got up.

Amy Frush sat looking. “ It's because you
thought you had ground for jealousy that you’ve
been extraordinary ? ”

Poor Susan, at this, quite bounced about.
“ Jealousy ? ”

It was a tone — never heard from her before — that
brought Amy Frush to her feet ; so that for a minute,
in the unlighted room where, in honour of the spring,
there had been no fire and the evening chill had
gathered, they stood as enemies. It lasted, fortu-
nately, even long enough to give one of them time
suddenly to find it horrible. “ But why should
we quarrel now ? ” Amy broke out in a different
voice.

Susan was not too alienated quickly enough to
meet it. “ It is rather wretched.”

“Now when we’re equal,” Amy went on.

“ Yes — I suppose we are.” Then, however, as if
just to attenuate the admission, Susan had her last
lapse from grace. “ They say, you know, that when
women do quarrel it’s usually about a man.”

433 2 F

THE THIRD PERSON

Amy recognised it, but also with a reserve. “ Well
then, let there first be one ! ”

“ And don’t you call him ? ”

“ No ! ” Amy declared and turned away, while her
companion showed her a vain wonder for what she
could in that case have expected. Their identity of
privilege was thus established, but it is not certain
that the air with which she indicated that the subject
had better drop didn’t press down for an instant her
side of the balance. She knew that she knew most
about men.

The subject did drop for the time, it being agreed
between them that neither should from that hour
expect from the other any confession or report.
They would treat all occurrences now as not worth
mentioning — a course easy to pm sue from the moment
the suspicion of jealousy had, on each side, been so
completely laid to rest. They led their life a month
or two on the smooth ground of taking everything for
granted ; by the end of which time, however, try as
they would, they had set up no question that —
while they met as a pair of gentlewomen living
together only must meet — could successfully pretend
to take the place of that of Cuthbcrt Frush. The
spring softened and deepened, reached out its tender
arms and scattered its shy graces ; the earth broke,
the air stirred, with emanations that were as touches
and voices of the past ; our friends bent their backs
in their garden and their noses over its symntoms ;
they opened their windows to the mildne and
tracked it in the lanes and by the hedges ; yet the
plant of conversation between them markedly failed
to renew itself with the rest. It was not indeed that
the mildness was not within them as well as without ;
all asperity, at least, had melted away ; they were
more than ever pleased with their general acquisition,
which, at the winter’s end, seemed to give out more

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THE THIRD PERSON

of its old secrets, to hum, however faintly, with more
of its old echoes, to creak, here and there, with the
expiring throb of old aches. The deepest sweetness
of the spring at Marr was just in its being in this way
an attestation of age and rest. The place never
seemed to have lived and lingered so long as when
kind nature, like a maiden blessing a crone, laid rosy
hands on its grizzled head. Then the new season
was a light held up to show all the dignity of the
years, but also all the wrinkles and scars. The good
ladies in whom we are interested changed, at any
rate, with the happy days, and it finally came out
not only that the invidious note had dropped, but
that it had positively turned to music. The whole
tone of the time made so for tenderness that it really
seemed as if at moments they were sad for each
other. They had their grounds at last : each found
them in her own consciousness ; but it was as if each
waited, on the other hand, to be sure she could speak
without offence. Fortunately, at last, the tense cord
snapped.

The old churchyard at Marr is still liberal ; it does
its immemorial utmost to people, with names and
dates and memories and eulogies, with generations
fore-shortened and confounded, the high empty table
at which the grand old cripple of the church looks
down over the low wall. It serves as an easy
thoroughfare, and the stranger finds himself pausing
in it with a sense of respect and compassion for the
great maimed, ivied shoulders — as the image strikes
him — of stone. Miss Susan and Miss Amy were
strangers enough still to have sunk down one May
morning on the sun-warmed tablet of an ancient tomb
and to have remained looking about them in a sort of
anxious peace. Their walks were all pointless now,
as if they always stopped and turned, for an uncon-
fessed want of interest, before reaching their object.
435

THE THIRD PERSON

That object presented itself at every start as the
same to each, but they had come back too often
without having got near it. This morning, strangely,
on the return and almost in sight of their door, they
were more in presence of it than they had ever been,
and they seemed fairly to touch it when Susan said
at last, quite in the air and with no traceable reference :
“ I hope you don't mind, dearest, if I’m awfully sorry
for you.”

“ Oh, I know it,” Amy returned — " I've felt it.
But what does it do for us ? ” she asked.

Then Susan saw, with wonder and pity, how little
resentment for penetration or patronage she had had
to fear and out of what a depth of sentiment similar
to her own her companion helplessly spoke. “ You’re
sorry for me ? ”

Amy at first only looked at her with tired eyes,
putting out a hand that remained a while on her arm.
“ Dear old girl ! You might have told me before,”
she went on as she took everything in ; “ though,
after all, haven’t we each really known it ? ”

“ Well,” said Susan, “ we’ve waited. We could
only wait.”

“ Then if we’ve waited together,” her friend re-
turned, “ that has helped us.”

“ Yes — to keep him in bis place. Who would ever
believe in him ? ” Miss Susan wearily wondered.
“ If it wasn’t for you and for me ”

“Not doubting of each other ? ” — her companion
took her up : “ yes, there wouldn’t be a creatun It’s
lucky for us,” said Miss Amy, “ that we don’t doubt.”

“ Oh, if we did we shouldn’t be sorry.”

“ No — except, selfishly, for ourselves. I am, I
assure you, for my self — it has made me older. But,
luckily, at any rate, we trust each other.”

“ We do,” said Miss Susan.

“ We do,” Miss Amy repeated — they lingered a

43 ^

THE THIRD PERSON

little on that. “ But except making one feel older,
what has it done for one ? "

" There it is ! ”

" And though we’ve kept him in his place," Miss
Amy continued, " he has also kept us in ours. We’ve
lived with it," she declared in melancholy justice.
“ And we wondered at first if we could ! ” she ironically
added. " Well, isn't just what we feel now that we
can’t any longer ? ”

" No — it must stop. And I’ve my idea," said
Susan Frush.

"Oh, I assure you I've mine ! ” her cousin re-
sponded.

" Then if you want to act, don’t mind me.”

" Because you certainly won’t me ? No, I suppose
not. Well ! " Amy sighed, as if, merely from this,
relief had at last come. Her comrade echoed it ;
they remained side by side ; and nothing could have
had more oddity than what was assumed alike in
what they had said and in what they still kept back.
There would have been this at least in their favour
for a questioner of their case, that each, charged
dejectedly with her own experience, took, on the
part of the other, the extraordinary — the ineffable,
in fact — all for granted. They never named it again
— as indeed it was not easy to name ; the whole
msCtter shrouded itself in personal discriminations
and privacies ; the comparison of notes had become
a thing impossible. What was definite was that they
had lived into their queer story, passed through it as
through an observed, a studied, eclipse of the usual,
a period of reclusion, a financial, social or moral crisis,
and only desired now to live out of it again. The
questioner we have been supposing might even have
fancied that each, on her side, had hoped for some-
thing from it that she finally perceived it was never
to give, which would have been exactly, moreover,

437

THE THIRD PERSON

the core of her secret and the explanation of her
reserve. They at least, as the business stood, put
each other to no test, and, if they were in fact dis-
illusioned and disappointed, came together, after
their long blight, solidly on that. It fully appeared
between them that they felt a great deal older.
When they got up from their sun-warmed slab, how-
ever, reminding each other of luncheon, it was with
a visible increase of case and with Miss Susan’s hand
drawn, for the walk home, into Miss Amy’s arm.
Thus the “ idea ” of each had continued unspoken
and ungrudged. It was as if each wished the other
to try her own first ; from which it might have been
gathered that they alike presented difficulty and
even entailed expense. The great questions remained.
What then did he mean ? what then did he want ?
Absolution, peace, rest, his final reprieve — merely to
say that saw them no further on the way than they
had already come. What were they at last to do for
him ? What could they give him that he would take ?
The ideas they respectively nursed still bore no fruit,
and at the end of another month Miss Susan was
frankly anxious about Miss Amy. Miss Amy as freely
admitted that people must have begun to notice
strange marks in them and to look for reasons. They
were changed — they must change back.

438

V

Yet it was not till one morning at midsummer, on
their meeting for breakfast, that the elder lady fairly
attacked the younger’s last entrenchment. " Poor,
poor Susan ! " Miss Amy had said to herself as her
cousin came into the room ; and a moment later she
brought out, for very pity, her appeal. “ What then
is yours ? ”

“ My idea ? ” It was clearly, at last, a vague
comfort to Miss Susan to be asked. Yet her answer
was desolate. " Oh, it’s no use ! ”

" But how do you know ? ”

" Why, 1 tried it — ten days ago, and I thought at
first it had answered. But it hasn’t.”

“ He's back again ? ”

Wan, tired, Miss Susan gave it up. “ Back again.”

Miss Amy, after one of the long, odd looks that
had now become their most frequent form of inter-
course, thought it over. “ And just the same ? ”

“ Worse.”

“ Dear ! ” said Miss Amy, clearly knowing what
that meant. “ Then what did you do ? ”

Her friend brought it roundly out. “ 1 made my
sacrifice.”

Miss Amy, though still more deeply interrogative,
hesitated. “ But of what ? ”

“ Why, of my little all — or almost.”

The “ almost ” seemed to puzzle Miss Amy, who,
439

THE THIRD PERSON

moreover, had plainly no clue to the property or
attribute so described. “ Your ‘ little all ' ? ”

“ Twenty pounds.”

“ Money ? ” Miss Amy gasped.

Her tone produced on her companion’s part a
wonder as great as her own. “ What then is it yours
to give ? ”

“ My idea ? It’s not to gite ! ” cried Amy Frush.
At the finer pride that broke out in this poor
Susan’s blankness flushed. “ What then is it to do ? ”
But Miss Amy’s bewilderment outlasted her
reproach. “ Do you mean he takes money ? ”

“The Chancellor of the Exchequer docs — for
‘ conscience.’ ”

Her friend’s exploit shone larger. “ Conscience-
money ? You sent it to Government ? ” Then
while, as the effect of her surprise, her mate looked
too much a fool, Amy melted to kindness. “ Why,
you secretive old thing ! ”

Miss Susan presently pulled herself more together.
“ When your ancestor has robbed the revenue and

his spirit walks for remorse ”

“ You pay to get rid of him ? I sec — and il
becomes what the vicar called his atonement by
deputy. But what if it isn’t remorse ? ” Miss Amy
shrewdly asked.

“ But it is — or it seemed to me so.”

“ Never to me,” said Miss Amy.

Again they searched each other. “ Then, evi-
dently, with you he's different.”

Miss Amy looked away. “ I daresay ! ”

“ So what is your idea ? ”

Miss Amy thought. “ I’ll tell you only if it
works.”

“ Then, for God’s sake, try it ! ”

Miss Amy, still with averted eyes and now looking
easily wise, continued to think. “ To try it I shall
440

THE THIRD PERSON

have to leave you. That’s why I’ve waited so long.”
Then she fully turned, and with expression : “ Can
you face three days alone ? ”

“ Oh — ‘ alone ! ’ I wish I ever were ! ”

At this her friend, as for very compassion, kissed
her ; for it seemed really to have come out at last —
and welcome ! — that poor Susan was the worse beset.

I'll do^it ! But I must go up to town. Ask me no

questions. All I can tell you now is ”

” Well ? ” Susan appealed while Amy impressively
fixed her.

“ It’s no more remorse than I’m a smuggler.”

” What is it then ? ”

“ It’s bravado.”

An " Oh ! ” more shocked and scared than any
that, in the whole business, had yet dropped from
her, wound up poor Susan's share in this agreement,
appearing as it did to represent for her a somewhat
lurid inference. Amy, clearly, had lights of her own.
It was by their aid, accordingly, that she immediately
prepared for the first separation they had had yet to
suffer ; of which the consequence, two days later,
was that Miss Susan, bowed and anxious, crept singly,
on the return from their parting, up the steep hill
that leads from the station of Marr and passed ruefully
under the ruined town-gate, one of the old defences,
that ’arches over it.

But the full sequel was not for a month — one hot
August night when, under the dim stars, they sat
together in their little walled garden. Though they
had by this time, in general, found again — as women
only can find — the secret of easy speech, nothing,
for the half-hour, had passed between them : Susan
had only sat waiting for her comrade to wake up.
Miss Amy had taken of late to interminable dozing —
as if with forfeits and arrears to recover ; she might
have been a convalescent from fever repairing tissue
441

THE THIRD PERSON

and getting through time. Susan Frush watched her
in the warm dimness, and the question between them
was fortunately at last so simple that she had freedom
to think her pretty in slumber and to fear that she
herself, so unguarded, presented an appearance less
graceful. She was impatient, for her need had at
last come, but she waited, and while she waited she
thought. She had already often done so, but the*
mystery deepened to-night in the story told, as it
seemed to her, by her companion’s frequent relapses..
What had been, three weeks before, the effort intense
enough to leave behind such a trial of fatigue ? The
marks, sure enough, had shown in the poor girl that
morning of the termination of the arranged absence
for which not three days, but ten, without word or
sign, were to prove no more than sufficient. It was
at an unnatural hour that Amy had turned up, dusty,
dishevelled, inscrutable, confessing for the time to
nothing more than a long night - journey. Miss
Susan prided herself on having played the game
and respected, however tormenting, the conditions.
She had her conviction that her friend had been out
of the country, and she marvelled, thinking of her
own old wanderings, and her present settled fears, at
the spirit with which a person, who, whatever she had
previously done, had not travelled, could carry off
such a flight. The hour had come at last for this
person to name her remedy. What determined it
was that, as Susan Frush sat there, she took home the
fact that the remedy was by this time not to U ques-
tioned. It had acted as her own had not, and Amy,
to all appearance, had only waited for her to admit
it. Well, she was ready when Amy woke — woke
immediately to meet her eyes and to show,
after a moment, in doing so, a vision of what was
in her mind. “What was it now?” Susan finally
said.

442

THE THIRD PERSON

“ My idea ? Is it possible you've not guessed ? ”

" Oh, you’re deeper, much deeper,” Susan sighed,
" than I.”

Amy didn’t contradict that — seemed indeed,
placidly enough, to take it for truth ; but she pre-
sently spoke as if the difference, after all, didn’t
matter now. “ Happily for us to-day — isn't it so ? —
'our case is the same. I can speak, at any rate, for
myself. He has left me.”

“ Thank God then ! ” Miss Susan devoutly mur-
mured. “ For he has left me”

" Are you sure ? ”

” Oh, I think so.”

“ But how ? ”

" Well,” said Miss Susan after an hesitation, ” how
are you ? ”

Amy, for a little, matched her pause. " Ah, that’s
what I can’t tell you. I can only answer for it that
he’s gone.”

" Then allow me also to prefer not to explain. The
sense of relief has for some reason grown strong in
me during the last half-hour. That’s such a comfort
that it’s enough, isn’t it ? ”

“ Oh, plenty ! ” The garden-side of their old
house, a window or two dimly lighted, massed itself
darkly in the summer night, and, with a common
impulse, they gave it, across the little lawn, a long,
fond look. Yes, they could be sure. “ Plenty ! ”
Amy repeated. ” He’s gone.”

Susan’s elder eyes hovered in the same way,
through her elegant glass, at his purified haunt.
" He’s gone. And how,” she insisted, " did you
do it ? ”

“ Why, you dear goose ” — Miss Amy spoke a little
strangely — ” I went to Paris.”

" To Paris ? ”

" To see what I could bring back — that I mightn’t,
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THE THIRD PERSON

that I shouldn’t. To do a stroke with ! ” Miss Amy
brought out.

But it left her friend still vague. “ A stroke ? ”

"To get through the Customs — under their
nose."

It was only with this that, for Miss Susan, a pale
light dawned. " You wanted to smuggle ? That
was your idea ? ’ '

" It was his," said Miss Amy. " He wanted no
‘ conscience money ’ spent for him," she now more
bravely laughed : "it was quite the other way about
— he wanted some bold deed done, of the old wild
kind ; he wanted some big risk taken. And I took
it." She sprang up, rebounding, in her triumph.

Her companion gasping, gazed at her. " Might
they have hanged you too ? "

Miss Amy looked up at the dim stars. " If I had
defended myself. But luckily it didn't come to that.
What I brought in I brought " — she rang out, more
and more lucid, now, as she talked--" triumphantly.
To appease him — I braved them. I chanced it, at
Dover, and they never knew."

" Then you hid it — ? "

" About my person."

With the shiver of this Miss Susan got up, and
they stood there duskily together. "It was so
small ? " the elder lady wonderingly murmured/

"It was big enough to have satisfied him," her
mate replied with just a shade of sharpness " I
chose it, with much thought, from the foL bidden
list."

The forbidden list hung a moment in Miss Susan’s
eyes, suggesting to her, however, but a pale con-
jecture. " A Tauchnitz ? "

Miss Amy communed again with the August stars.
" It was the spirit of the deed that told."

“ A Tauchnitz ? " her friend insisted.

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THE THIRD PERSON

Then at last her eyes again dropped, and the
Misses Frusli moved together to the house. ” Well,
he’s satisfied.”

“ Yes, and ” — Miss Susan mused a little ruefully
as they went — - ” you got at last your week in
Paris ! ”

445

THE TONE OE TIME

447

I was too pleased with what it struck me that, as an
old, old friend, I had done for her, not to go to her
that very afternoon with the news. I knew she worked
late, as in general I also did ; but I sacrificed for her
sake a good hour of the February daylight. She was
in her studio, as I had believed she would be, where her
card (" Mary J. Tredick ” — not Mary Jane, but Mary
Juliana) was manfully on the door ; a little tired, a
little old and a good deal spotted, but with her ugly
spectacles taken off, as soon as I appeared, to greet me.
She kept on, while she scraped her palette and wiped
her brushes, the big stained apron that covered her
from head to foot and that I have often enough
before seen her retain in conditions giving the measure
of her renunciation of her desire to dazzle. Every
fresh reminder of this brought home to me that she
hacf given up everything but her work, and that there
had been in her history some reason. But I was as
far from the reason as ever. She had given up too
much ; this was just why one wanted to lend a hand.
I told her, at any rate, that I had a lovely job for her.

“ To copy something I do like ? "

Her complaint, I knew, was that people only gave
orders, if they gave them at all, for things she did
not like. But this wasn’t a case of copying — not at all,
at least, in the common sense. “ It’s for a portrait —
quite in the air.”

THE TONE OF TIME

" Ah, you do portraits yourself ! "

"Yes, and you know how. My trick won’t serve
for this. What’s wanted is a pretty picture."

" Then of whom ? "

" Of nobody. That is of anybody. Anybody you
like."

She naturally wondered. " Do you mean I’m
myself to choose my sitter ? "

" Well, the oddity is that there is to be no
sitter."

" Whom then is the picture to represent ? "

" Why, a handsome, distinguished, agreeable man,
of not more than forty, cDan-shaven, thoroughly
well-dressed, and a perfect gentleman."

She continued to stare. " And I'm to find him
myself ? "

I laughed at the term she used. "Yes, as you
‘ find ’ the canvas, the colours and .the frame." After
which 1 immediately explained. "I’ve just had the
' rummest ’ visit, the effect of which was to make
me think of you. A lady, unknown to me and un-
introduced, turned up at my place at three o’clock.
She had come straight, she let me know, without
preliminaries, on account of one's high reputation —
the usual thing — and of licr having admired one's
work. Of course I instantly saw — I mean I sa >v it
as soon as she named her affair — that she hadn’t
understood my work at all. What am I good for
in the world but just the impression of the given,
the presented case ? I can do but the face I see."

" And do you think I can do the face I don’t ? ”

"No, but you see so many more. You see them
in fancy and memory, and they come out, for you,
from all the museums you've haunted and all the
great things you’ve studied. I know you’ll be able
to see the one my visitor wants and to give it — what’s
the crux of the business — the tone of time."

430

THE TONE OF TIME

She turned the question over. “ What does she
want it for ? ”

“ Just for that — for the tone of time. And, except
that it’s to hang over her chimney, she didn’t tell
me. I've only my idea that it’s to represent, to
symbolise, as it were, her husband, who’s not alive
and who perhaps never was. This is exactly what
* will give you a free hand.”

“ With nothing to go by — no photographs or other
portraits ? ”

" Nothing.”

“ She only proposes to describe him ? ”

“ Not even ; she wants the picture itself to do
that. Her only condition is that he be a tres-bel
homme”

She had begun at last, a little thoughtfully, to
remove her apron. " Is she French ? ”

“ I don’t know. I give it up. She calls herself
Mrs. Bridgenorth.”

Mary wondered. ” Connais pas ! I never heard
of her.”

“You wouldn’t.”

" You mean it’s not her real name ? ”

I hesitated. *' I mean that she's a very downright
fact, full of the implication that she’ll pay a downright
price. It’s clear to me that you can ask what you
lik£ ; and it’s therefore a chance that I can’t consent
to your missing.” My friend gave no sign either way,
and I told my story. “ She's a woman of fifty,
perhaps of more, who has been pretty, and who still
presents herself, with her grey hair a good deal
powdered, as I judge, to carry it off, extraordinarily
well. She was a little frightened and a little free ;
the latter because of the former. But she did un-
commonly well, I thought, considering the oddity of
her wish. This oddity she quite admits ; she began
indeed by insisting on it so in advance that I found
45i

THE TONE OF TIME

myself expecting I didn't know what. She broke at
moments into French, which was perfect, but no
better than her English, which isn't vulgar ; not
more at least than that of everybody else. The things
people do say, and the way they say them, to artists I
She wanted immensely, I could see, not to fail of her
errand, not to be treated as absurd ; and she was
extremely grateful to me for meeting her so far as
I did. She was beautifully dressed and she came in
a brougham."

My listener took it in ; then, very quietly, “ Is
she respectable ? " she inquired.

“ Ah, there you are ! ” I laughed ; " and how you
always pick the point right out, even when one has
endeavoured to diffuse a specious glamour ! She’s
extraordinary,” I pursued after an instant ; " and
just what she wants of the picture, I think, is to
make her a little less so."

" Who is she, then ? What is she ? " my com-
panion simply went on.

It threw me straightway back on one of my hobbies.
"Ah, my dear, what is so interesting as life ? What
is, above all, so stupendous as London ? There’s
everything in it, everything in the world, and nothing
too amazing not some day to pop out at you. What
is a woman, faded, preserved, pretty, powdered, vague,
odd, dropping on one without credentials, but with a
carriage and very good lace ? What is such a person but
a person who may have had adventures, and have made
them, in one way or another, pay ? They're, however,
none of one’s business ; it’s scarcely on the cards that
one should ask her. I should like, with Mrs. Bridge-
north, to sec a fellow ask ! She goes in for propriety,
the real thing. If I suspect her of being the creation
of her own talents, she has clearly, on the other hand,
seen a lot of life. Will you meet her ? " I next
demanded.

452

THE TONE OF TIME

My hostess waited. “ No.”

” Then you won't try ? ”

“ Need I meet her to try ? ” And the question
made me guess that, so far as she had understood,
she began to feel herself a little taken. “ It seems
strange,” she none the less mused, “ to attempt to
please her on such a basis. To attempt,” she pre-
sently added, “ to please her at all. It's your idea
that she’s not married ? ” she, with this, a trifle
inconsequently asked.

“ Well,” I replied, “ I’ve only had an hour to
think of it, but I somehow already see the scene.
Not immediately, not the day after, or even perhaps
the year after the thing she desires is set up there,
but in due process of time and on convenient oppor-
tunity, the transfiguration will occur. ‘ Who is that
awfully handsome man ? ’ ' That ? Oh, that’s an

old sketch of my dear dead husband.’ Because I
told her — insidiously sounding her— that she would
want it to look old, and that the tone ol time is
exactly what you’re full of.”

“ I believe I am,” Mary sighed at last.

" Then put on your hat.” I had proposed to her
on my arrival to come out to tea with me, and it
was when left alone in the studio while she went to
her room that I began to feel sure of the success of
my errand. The vision that had an hour before deter-
mined me grew deeper and brighter for her while I
moved about and looked at her things. There were
more of them there on her hands than one liked to
see ; but at least they sharpened my confidence,
which was pleasant for me in view of that of my
visitor, who had accepted without reserve my plea
for Miss Tredick. Four or five of her copies of
famous portraits — ornaments of great public and
private collections- -were on the walls, and to see
them again together was to feel at ease about my
461

THE TONE OF TIME

guarantee. The mellow manner of them was what
I had had in my mind in saying, to excuse myself
to Mrs. Bridgenorth, " Oh, my things, you know,
look as if they had been painted to-morrow ! ” It
made no difference that Mary’s Vandykes and Gains-
boroughs were reproductions and replicas, for I had
known her more than once to amus§ herself with
doing the thing quite, as she called it, off her own '
bat. She had copied so bravely so many brave things
that she had at the end of her brush an extraordinary
bag of tricks. She had always replied to me that
such things were mere clever humbug, but mere clever
humbug was what our client happened to want. The
thing was to let her have it — one could trust her for
the rest. And at the same time that I mused in this
way I observed to myself that there was already
something more than, as the phrase is, met the eye
in such response as I felt my friend had made. I
had touched, without intention, more than one spring ;

I had set in motion more than one impulse. I found
myself indeed quite certain of this after she had
come back in her hat and her jacket. She was
different — her idea had flowered ; and she smiled at
me from under her tense veil, while she drew over
her firm, narrow hands a pair of fresh gloves, with
a light distinctly new. “ Please tell your friend that
I’m greatly obliged to both of you and that I t‘ake
the order.”

” Good. And to give him all his good look*? ? '

" It's just to do that that I accept. I shall make
him supremely beautiful — and supremely base.”

“ Base ? ” I just demurred.

“ The finest gentleman you’ll ever have seen, and
the worst friend.”

I wondered, as I was startled ; but after an instant
I laughed for joy. “ Ah well, so long as he’s not
mine ! I see we shall have him,” I said as we went,
454

THE TONE OF TIME

for truly I had touched a spring. In fact I had
touched the spring.

It rang, more or less, I was presently to find, all
over the place. I went, as I had promised, to report
to Mrs. Bridgcnorth on my mission, and though she
declared herself much gratified at the success of it
I could see she a little resented the apparent absence
of any desire on Miss Tredick’s part for a preliminary
conference. “ I only thought she might have liked
just to see me, and have imagined I might like to
sec her”

But I was full of comfort. “ You’ll sec her when
it’s finished. You’ll see her in time to thank
her.”

“ And to pay her, I suppose,” my hostess laughed,
with an asperity that was, after all, not excessive.
“ Will she take very long ? ”

I thought. “ She's so full of it that my impression
would be that she’ll do it off at a heat.”

“ She is full of it then ? ” she asked ; and on
hearing to what tune, though I told her but half,
she broke out with admiration. " You artists are
the most extraordinary people ! ” It was almost
with a bad conscience that I confessed we indeed
were, and while she said that what she meant was that
we seemed to understand everything, and I rejoined
that this was also what I meant, she took me into
another room to see the place for the picture — a
proceeding of which the effect was singularly to
confirm the truth in question. The place for the
picture — in her own room, as she called it, a boudoir
at the back, overlooking the general garden of the
approved modern row and, as she said, only just
wanting that touch — proved exactly the place (the
space of a large panel in the white woodwork over
the mantel) that I had spoken of to my friend. She
put it quite candidly, " Don’t you see what it will

455

THE TONE OF TIME

do ? ” and looked at me, wonderfully, as for a sign
that I could sympathetically take from her what she
didn’t literally say. She said it, poor woman, so very
nearly that I had no difficulty whatever. The portrait,
tastefully enshrined there, of the finest gentleman one
should ever have seen, would do even more for herself
than it would do for the room.

I may as well mention at once that my observation
of Mrs. Bridgenorth was not in the least of a nature
to unseat me from the hobby I have already named.
In the light of the impression she made on me life
seemed quite as prodigious and London quite as
amazing as I had ever contended, and nothing could
have been more in the key of that experience than
the manner in which everything was vivid between
us and nothing expressed. We remained on the
surface with the tenacity of shipwrecked persons
clinging to a plank. Our plank was our concentrated
gaze at Mrs. Bridgenorth 's mere present. We allowed
her past to exist for us only in the form of the pretti-
ness that she had gallantly rescued from it and to
which a few scraps of its identity still adhered. She
was amiable, gentle, consistently proper. She gave
me more than anything else the sense, simply, of
waiting. She was like a house so freshly and success-
fully “ done up ” that you were surprised it wasn't
occupied . She was waiting for something to liappeh — •
for somebody to come. She was waiting, above all,
for Mary Tredick’s work. She clearly counter lhat
it would help her.

I had foreseen the fact — the picture was produced
at a heat ; rapidly, directly, at all events, for the
sort of thing it proved to be. I left my friend alone
at first, left the ferment to work, troubling her with
no questions and asking her for no news ; two or
three weeks passed, and I never went near her.
Then at last, one afternoon as the light was failing,
456

THE TONE OF TIME

I looked in. She immediately knew what I wanted.
" Oh yes, I'm doing him.”

“ Well,” I said, “ I've respected your intensity,
but I have felt curious.”

I may not perhaps say that she was never so sad
as when she laughed, but it’s certain that she always
laughed when she was sad. When, however, poor
•dear, for that matter, was she, secretly, not ? Her
little gasps of mirth were the mark of her worst
moments. But why should she have one of these
just now ? “ Oh, I know your curiosity ! ” she

replied to me ; and the small chill of her amusement
scarcely met it. " He's coming out, but I can’t
show him to you yet. I must muddle it through
in my own way. It has insisted on being, after all,
a ‘ likeness,' ” she added. “ But nobody will ever
know.”

“ Nobody ? ”

“ Nobody she sees.”

“ Ah, she doesn’t, poor thing,” I returned, “ seem
to sec anybody ! ”

” So much the better. I’ll risk it.” On which I felt
I should have to wait, though I had suddenly grown
impatient. But I still hung about, and while 1 did
so she explained. “ If what I’ve done is really a
portrait, the conditions itself prescribed it. If I was
to c?b the most beautiful man in the world I could
do but one.”

We looked at each other ; then I laughed. " It
can scarcely be me ! But you’re getting,” I asked,
" the great thing ? ”

" The infamy ? Oh yes, please God.”

It took away my breath a little, and I even for
the moment scarce felt at liberty to press. But one
could always be cheerful. “ What I meant is the
tone of time.”

“ Getting it, my dear man ? Didn’t I get it long

45*

THE TONE OF TIME

ago ? Don’t I show it — the tone of time ? ” she
suddenly, strangely sighed at me, with something in
her face I had never yet seen. “ I can't give it to
him more than — for all these years — he was to have
given it to me”

I scarce knew what smothered passion, what
remembered wrong, what mixture of joy and pain
my words had accidentally quickened. Such an*
effect of them could only become, for me, an instant
pity, which, however, I brought out but indirectly.
“ It’s the tone,” I smiled, *' in which you’re speaking
now.”

This served, unfortunately, as something of a check.
“ I didn’t mean to speak now.” Then with her
eyes on the picture, ” I’ve said everything there.
Come back,” she added, “ in three days. He'll be
all right.”

He was indeed when at last ‘I saw him. She had
produced an extraordinary thing — a thing wonderful,
ideal, for the part it was to play. My only reserve,
from the first, was that it was too line for its part,
that something much less f ‘ sincere ” would equally
have served Mrs. Bridgcnorth’s purpose, and that
relegation to that lady’s ” own room ” — whatever
charm it was to work there — might only mean for
it cruel obscurity. The picture is before me now,
so that I could describe it if description availed! It
represents a man of about five-and-tliirty, sren only
as to the head and shoulders, but dressed, the ' bserver
gathers, in a fashion now almost antique and which
was far from contemporaneous with the date of the
work. His high, slightly narrow face, which would
be perhaps too aquiline but for the beauty of the
forehead and the sweetness of the mouth, has a charm
that even, after all these years, still stirs my imagina-
tion. His type has altogether a distinction that you
feel to have been firmly caught and yet not vulgarly

458

THE TONE OF TIME

emphasised. The eyes are just too near together,
but they arc, in a wondrous way, both careless and
intense, while lip, cheek, and chin, smooth and clear,
are adnlirably drawn. Youth is still, you see, in all
his presence, the joy and pride of life, the perfection
of a high spirit and the expectation of a great fortune,
which he takes for granted with unconscious insolence.

’Nothing has ever happened to humiliate or disappoint
him, and if my fancy doesn’t run away with me the
whole presentation of him is a guarantee that he will
die without having suffered. He is so handsome, in
short, that you can scarcely say what he means, and
so happy that you can scarcely guess what he feels.

It is of course, I hasten to add, an appreciably
feminine rendering, light, delicate, vague, imperfectly
synthetic — insistent and evasive, above all, in the
wrong places ; but the composition, none the less,
is beautiful and the suggestion infinite. The grandest
air of the thing struck me in fact, when first I saw
it, as coming from the high artistic impertinence with
which it offered itself as painted about 1850. It
would have been a rare flower of refinement for that
dark day. The “ tone ” — that of such a past as it
pretended to — was there almost to excess, a brown
bloom into which the image seemed mysteriously to
retreat. The subject of it looks at me now across
morfc years and more knowledge, but what I felt
at the moment was that he managed to be at once
a triumphant trick and a plausible evocation. He
hushed me, I remember, with so many kinds of awe
that I shouldn’t have dreamt of asking who he was.
All I said, after my first incoherences of wonder
at my friend's practised skill, was : " And you’ve
arrived at this truth without documents ? ”

“ It depends on what you call documents.”

“ Without notes, sketches, studies ? ”

“ I destroyed them years ago.”

459

THE TONE OF TIME

“ Then you once had thorn ? ”

She just hung fire. “ I once had everything.”

It told me both more and less than I had asked ;
enough at all events to make my next question, as
I uttered it, sound even to myself a little foolish.
“ So that it’s all memory ? ”

From where she stood she looked once more at
her work ; after which she jerked away and, taking*
several steps, came back to me with something new —
whatever it was I had already seen — in her air and
answer. “ It's all hate ! ” she threw at me, and then
went out of the room. It was not till she had gone
that I quite understood why. Extremely affected
by the impression visibly made on me, she had burst
into tears but had wished me not to see them. She
left me alone for some time with her wonderful
subject, and I again, in her absence, made things out.
He was dead — he had been dead for years ; the sole
humiliation, as I have called it, that he was to know
had come to him in that form. The canvas held
and cherished him, in any case, as it only holds the
dead. She had suffered from him, it came to me,
the worst that a woman can suffer, and the wound
he had dealt her, though hidden, had never effectually
healed. It had bled again while she worked. Yet
when she at last reappeared there was but one thing
to say. “ The beauty, heaven knows, I see. But I
don’t see what you call the infamy.”

.She gave him a last look — again she turrud away.
“ Oh, he was like that."

" Well, whatever he was like,” I remember re-
plying, “ I wonder you can bear to part with him.
Isn’t it better to let her see the picture first here ? ”
As to this she doubted. “ I don’t think I want
her to come.”

I wondered. “You continue to object so to meet
her ? ’’

460

THE TONE OF TIME

“ What good will it do ? It's quite impossible I
should alter him for her.”

" Oh, she won't want that ! ” I laughed. “ She'll
adore him as he is.”

*' Are you quite sure of your idea ? ”

" That he’s to figure as Mr. Bridgenorth ? Well,
if I hadn’t been from the first, my dear lady, I should
*be now. Fancy, with the chance, her not jumping
at him ! Yes, he’ll figure as Mr. Bridgenorth.”

“ Mr. Bridgenorth ! ” she echoed, making the
sound, with her small, cold laugh, grotesquely poor
for him. He might really have been a prince, and
I wondered if he hadn't been. She had, at all events,
a new notion. " Do you mind my having it taken to
your place and letting her come to see it there ? ”
Which — as I immediately embraced her proposal,
deferring to her reasons, whatever they were — was
what was speedily arranged.

46*

II

The next day therefore I had the picture in charge,
and on the following Mrs. Bridgenorth, whom I had
notified, arrived. I had placed it, framed and on an
easel, well in evidence, and I have never forgotten
the look and the cry that, as she became aware of it,
leaped into her face and from her lips. It was an
extraordinary moment, all the more that it found
me quite unprepared — so extraordinary that I scarce
knew at first what had happened. By the time I
really perceived, moreover, more things had happened
than one, so that when I pulled myself together it
was to face the situation as a whole. She had recog-
nised on the instant the subject ; that came first
and was irrepressibly vivid in her. Her recognition
had, for the length of a flash, lighted for her th»'
possibility that the stroke had been directed. That
came second, and she flushed with it as with a blow
in the face. What came third — and it wa.-. what
was really most wondrous — was the quick instinct
of getting both her strange recognition and her blind
suspicion well in hand. She couldn't control, however,
poor woman, the strong colour in her face and the
quick tears in her eyes. She could only glare at the
canvas, gasping, grimacing, and try to gain time.
Whether in surprise or in resentment she intensely
reflected, feeling more than anything else how little
she might prudently show ; and I was conscious even
462

THE TONE OF TIME

at the moment that nothing of its kind could have
been finer than her effort to swallow her shock in
ten seconds.

How many seconds she took I didn't measure ;
enough, assuredly, for me also to profit. I gained
more time than she, and the greatest oddity doubtless
was my own private manoeuvre — the quickest calcula-
tion that, acting from a mere confused instinct, I had
ever made. If she had known the great gentleman
represented there and yet had determined on the
spot to cairy herself as ignorant, all my loyalty to
Mary Tredick came to the surface in a prompt counter-
move. What gave me opportunity was the red in
her cheek. “ Why, you’ve known him ! "

I saw her ask herself for an instant if she mightn’t
successfully make her startled state pass as the mere
glow of pleasure — her natural greeting to her acquisi-
tion. She was pathetically, yet at the same time
almost comically, divided. Her line was so to cover
her tracks that every avowal of a past connexion
was a danger ; but it also concerned her safety to
learn, in the light of our astounding coincidence, how
far she already stood exposed. She meanwhile begged
the question. She smiled througli her tears. “ He’s
too magnificent ! ”

But I gave her, as I say, all too little time. “ Who
is h<^ ? Who was he ? ”

It must have been my look still more than my
words that determined her. She wavered but an
instant longer, panted, laughed, cried again, and then,
dropping into the nearest seat, gave herself up so
completely that I was almost ashamed. " Do you
think I’d tell you his name ? ” The burden of the
backward years — -all the effaced and ignored — lived
again, almost like an accent unlearned but freshly
breaking out at a touch, in the very sound of the
words. These perceptions she, however, the next
466

THE TONE OF TIME

thing showed me, were a game at which two could
play. She had to look at me but an instant. “Why,
you really don't know it ! ”

I judged best to be frank. “ I don’t know it.”

“ Then how does she ? ”

“ How do you ? ” I laughed. “I’m a different
matter.’’

She sat a minute turning things round, staring at'
the picture. “ The likeness, the likeness ! ” It was
almost too much.

“ It’s so true ? ”

“ Beyond everything.’’

I considered. “ But a resemblance to a known
individual — that wasn’t what you wanted.’’

She sprang up at this in eager protest. “Ah, no
one else would see it.”

I showed again, I fear, my amusement. “No one
but you and she ? ”

“ It’s her doing him ! ” She was held by her
wonder. “ Doesn’t she, on your honour, know ? ”

“ That his is the very head you would have liked
if you had dared ? Not a bit. How should she ?
She knows nothing — on my honour.”

Mrs. Bridgenorth continued to marvel. “ She just
painted him for the kind of face ? ”

“ That corresponds with my description of what
you wished ? Precisely.”

“ But how — after so long ? From momoi> ? As
a friend ? ”

“As a reminiscence— yes. Visual memoiy, you
see, in our uncanny race, is wonderful. As the ideal
thing, simply, for your purpose. You arc then
suited ? ” I after an instant added.

She had again been gazing, and at this turned
her eyes on me ; but I saw she couldn't speak,
couldn’t do more at least than sound, unutterably,
“ Suited ! ” so that I was positively not surprised

4*64

THE TONE OF TIME

when suddenly — just as Mary had done, the power
to produce this effect seeming a property of the model
— she burst into tears. I feel no harsher in relating
it, however I may appear, than I did at the moment,
but it is a fact that while she just wept I literally
had a fresh inspiration on behalf of Miss Tredick's
interests. I knew exactly, moreover, before my com-
*panion had recovered herself, what she would next
ask me ; and I consciously brought this appeal on
in order to have it over. I explained that I had not
the least idea of the identity of our artist’s sitter, to
which she had given me no clue. I had nothing but
my impression that she had known him — known him
well ; and, from whatever material she had worked,
the fact of his having also been known to Mrs. Bridge-
north was a coincidence pure and simple. It partook
of the nature of prodigy, but such prodigies did occur.
My visitor listened with avidity and credulity. She
was so far reassured. Then I saw her question come.
" Well, if she doesn’t dream he was ever anything
to me — or what he will be now — I’m going to ask you,
as a very particular favour, never to tell her. She
will want to know of course exactly how I’ve been
struck. You’ll naturally say that I’m delighted, but
may I exact from you that you say nothing else ? ”

There was supplication in her face, but I had to
think. “ There arc conditions 1 must put to you
first, and one of them is also a question, only more
frank than yours. Was this mysterious personage —
frustrated by death — to have married you ? "

She met it bravely. “ Certainly, if he had
lived.”

I was only amused at an artlcssness in her
" certainly.” ” Very good. But why do you wish
the coincidence ”

" Kept from her ? ” She knew exactly why.
” Because if she suspects it she won't let me have
463 2 11

THE TONE OF TIME

the picture. Therefore/' she added with decision,

“ you must let me pay for it on the spot.”

” What do you mean by on the spot ? ”

“ I'll send you a cheque as soon as I get home.”

“Oh,” I laughed, “let us understand. Why do
you consider she won’t let you have the picture ? ”

She made me wait a little for this, but when it
came it was perfectly lucid. “ Because she’ll then *
see how much more 1 must want it.”

" How much less — wouldn't it be rather, since the
bargain was, as the more convenient thing, not for
a likeness ? ”

“ Oh,” said Mrs. Bridgcnorth with impatience,

“ the likeness will take care of itself. She'll put this
and that together.” Then she brought out her real
apprehension. “ She’ll be jealous.”

“ Oh ! ” I laughed. But I was startled.

“ She’ll hate me!”

I wondered. " But I don’t think she liked him.”

" Don’t think ? ” She stared at me, with her
echo, over all that might be in it, then seemed to
find little enough. “ I say ! ”

It was almost comically the old Mrs. Bridgcnorth.

“ But I gather from her that he was bad.”

“ Then what was she ? ”

I barely hesitated. “ What were you ? ”

“ That’s my own business.” And she turned a'gain
to the picture. " He was good enough for her to do
that of him.”

I took it in once more. “ Artistically speaking,
for the way it's done, it’s one of the most curious
things I’ve ever seen.”

“ It’s a grand treat ! ” said poor Mrs. Bridgenorth
more simply.

It was, it is really ; which is exactly what made the
case so interesting. “ Yet I feel somehow that, as
I say, it wasn’t done with love.”

466

THE TONE OF TIME

It was wonderful how she understood. “ It was
done with rage.”

“ Then what have you to fear ? ”

She knew again perfectly. " What happened when
he made me jealous. So much,” she declared* “ that
if you'll give me your word for silence' ”

“ Well ? ”

" Why, I’ll double the money.”

“Oh,” I replied, taking a turn about in the ex-
citement of our concurrence, “ that’s exactly what —
to do a still better stroke for her — it had just come
to me to propose ! ”

“ It's understood then, on your oath as a gentle-
man ? ” She was so eager that practically this
settled it, though I moved to and fro a little while
she watched me in suspense. It vibrated all round
us that she had gone out to the thing in a stifled flare,
that a whole close relation had in the few minutes
revived. We know it of the truly amiable person
that he will strain a point for another that he wouldn't
strain for himself. The stroke to put in for Mary
was positively prescribed. The work represented
really much more than had been covenanted, and
if the purchaser chose so to value it this was her own
affair. I decided. “ If it's understood also on your
word.”

We were so at one that we shook hands on it.
“ And when may I send ? ”

"Well, I shall see her this evening. Say early
to-morrow.”

“ Early to-morrow.” And I went with her to
her brougham, into which, I remember, as she took
leave, she expressed regret that she mightn't then
and there have introduced the canvas for removal.
I consoled her with remarking that she couldn’t have
got it in — which was not quite true.

I saw Mary Tredick before dinner, and though I

467

THE TONE OF TIME

was not quite ideally sure of my present ground with
her I instantly brought out my news. " She's so
delighted that I felt I must in conscience do something
still better for you. She's not to have it on the
original terms. I've put up the price."

Mary wondered. " But to what ? "

“ Well, to four hundred. If you say so I'll try
even for five."

" Oh, she'll never give that."

" I beg your pardon.”

“ After the agreement ? " She looked grave. " I
don't like such leaps and bounds."

" But, my dear child, they're yours. You con-
tracted for a decorative trifle and you’ve produced a
breathing masterpiece . ' '

She thought. “ Is that what she calls it ? " Then,
as having to think too, I hesitated. " What does she
know ? ” she pursued.

" She knows she wants it."

" So much as that ? ”

At this I had to brace myself a little. " So much
that she’ll send me the cheque this afternoon, and that
you’ll have mine by the first post in the morning."

" Before she has even received the picture ? "

"Oh, she’ll send for it to-morrow." And as I
was dining out and had still to dress, my time was
up. Mary came with me to the door, where I repeated
my assurance. "You shall receive my cheese by
the first post.” To which I added : “ If it ^ little
enough for a lady so much in need to pay tor any
husband, it isn’t worth mentioning as the price of
such a one as you’ve given her ! "

I was in a hurry, but she held me. " Then you’ve
felt your idea confirmed ? "

" My idea ? ”

" That that’s what I have given her ? ”

I suddenly fancied I had perhaps gone too far ;

THE TONE OF TIME

but I had kept my cab and was already in it. " Well,
put it," I called with excess of humour over the front,
“ that you’ve, at any rate, given him a wife ! "

When on my return from dinner that night I let
myself in, my first care, in my dusky studio, was to
make light for another look at Mary’s subject. I
felt the impulse to bid him good-night, but, to my
astonishment, he was no longer there. His place
was a void — he had already disappeared. I saw,
however, after my first surprise, what had happened
— saw it, moreover, frankly, with some relief. As my
servants were in bed I could ask no questions, but
it was clear that Mrs. Bridgenorth, whose note, con-
taining its cheque, lay on my table, had been after
all unable to wait. The note, I found, mentioned
nothing but the enclosure ; but it had come by hand,
and it was her silence that told the tale. Her
messenger had been instructed to " act ” ; he had
come with a vehicle, he had transferred to it canvas
and frame. The prize was now therefore landed and
the incident closed. I didn’t altogether, the next
morning, know why, but I had slept the better for
the sense of these things, and as soon as my attendant
came in I asked for details. It was on this that his
answer surprised me. "No, sir, there was no man ;
she came herself. She had only a four-wheeler, but
I helped her, and we got it in. It was a squeeze, sir,
but she would take it."

I wondered. " She had a four-wheeler ? and not
her servant ? "

" No, no, sir. She came, as you may say, single-
handed.”

" And not even in her brougham, which would
have been larger ? "

My man, with his habit, weighed it. " But have
she a brougham, sir ? "

" Why, the one she was here in yesterday."

469

THE TONE OF TIME

Then light broke. "Oh, that lady ! It wasn’t
her, sir. It was Miss Tredick."

Light broke, but darkness a little followed it — a
darkness that, after breakfast, guided my steps back
to my friend. There, in its own first place, I met
her creation ; but I saw it would be a different thing
meeting her. She immediately put down on a table,
as if she had expected me, the cheque I had sent
her overnight. "Yes, I've brought it away. And
I can't take the money."

I found myself in despair. "You want to keep
him ? "

" I don’t understand what has happened.”

" You just back out ? "

" I don’t understand," she repeated, " what has
happened." But what I had already perceived was,
on the contrary, that she very nearly, that she in
fact quite remarkably, did understand. It was as
if in my zeal I had given away my case, and I felt
that my test was coming. She had been thinking
all night with intensity, and Mrs. Bridgenorth’s
generosity, coupled with Mrs. Bridgenorth's prompti-
tude, had kept her awake. Thence, for a woman
nervous and critical, imaginations, visions, questions.
" Why, in writing me last night, did you take for
granted it was she who had swooped down ? Why,"
asked Mary Tredick, " should she swoop ? ” *

Well, if I could drive a bargain for Mary J felt
I could a fortiori lie for her. " Because it's h' i r way.
She does swoop. She’s impatient and uncontrolled.
And it’s affectation for you to pretend," I said with
diplomacy, " that you see no reason for her falling
in love "

" Falling in love ? ” She took me straight up.

" With that gentleman. Certainly. What woman
wouldn't ? What woman didn’t ? I really don’t sec,
you know, your right to back out."

4^0

THE TONE OF TIME

" I won’t back out,” she presently returned, ” if
you’ll answer me a question. Does she know the
man represented ? ” Then as I hung fire : “ It has
come to me that she must. It would account for so
much. For the strange way I feel,” she went on,
” and for the extraordinary sum you’ve been able to
extract from her.”

It was a pity, and I flushed with it, besides wincing
at the word she used. But Mrs. Bridgenorth and I,
between us, had clearly made the figure too high.
“You think that, if she had guessed, I would naturally
work it to ‘ extract ' more ? ”

She turned away from me on this and, looking
blank in her trouble, moved vaguely about. Then
she stopped. ” I see him set up there. I hear her
say it. What you said she would make him pass for.”

I believe I foolishly tried — though only for an
instant — to look as if I didn’t remember what I had
said. " Her husband ? ”

“ He wasn’t.”

The next minute I had risked it. “ Was he
yours ? ”

I don’t know what I had expected, but I found
myself surprised at her mere pacific head-shake.
“ No.”

“ Then why mayn’t he have been ? ”

Another woman's ? Because he died, to my
absolute knowledge, unmarried.” She spoke as
quietly. " He had known many women, and there
was one in particular with whom he became — and
too long remained — ruinously intimate. She tried
to make him marry her, and he was very near it.
Death, however, saved him. But she was the
reason ”

“ Yes ? ” I feared again from her a wave of pain,
and I went on while she kept it back. “ Did you
know her ? ”

47 1

THE TONE OF TIME

“ She was one I wouldn’t.” Then she brought it
out. “ She was the reason he failed me.” Her
successful detachment somehow said all, reduced
me to a flat, kind “ Oh ! ” that marked my sense
of her telling me, against my expectation, more
than I knew what to do with. But it was just
while I wondered how to turn her confidence
that she repeated, in a changed voice, her challenge
of a moment before. “ Does she know the man
represented ? ”

“ I haven’t the least idea.” And having so
acquitted myself I added, with what strikes me now
as futility : “ She certainly — yesterday — didn't name
him.”

“ Only recognised him ? ”

“ If she did she brilliantly concealed it.”

“ So that you got nothing from her ? ”

It was a question that offered me a certain ad-
vantage. “ I thought you accused me of getting too
much.”

She gave me a long look, and I now saw everything
in her face. “ It’s very nice — what you’re doing for
me, and you do it handsomely. It’s beautiful —
beautiful, and I thank you with all my heart. But
I know.”

“ And what do you know ? ”

She went about now preparing her usual w©rk.
“ What he must have been to her.”

“You mean she was the person ? ”

“Well,” she said, putting on her old spectacles,
” she was one of them.”

“ And you accept so easily the astounding co-
incidence ? ”

“ Of my finding myself, after years, in so extra-
ordinary a relation with her ? What do you call
easily ? I’ve passed a night of torment.”

“ But what put it into your head ? ”

4Z 2

THE TONE OF TIME

“ That I had so blindly and strangely given him
back to her ? You put it — yesterday.”

“ And how ? ”

“ I can’t tell you. You didn’t in the least mean
to — on the contrary. But you dropped the seed.
The plant, after you had gone,” she said with a
business-like pull at her easel, “ the plant began to
grow. I saw them there — in your studio — face to
face.”

“You were jealous ? ” I laughed.

She gave me through her glasses another look,
and they seemed, from this moment, in their queer-
ncss, to have placed her quite on the other side of
the gulf of time. She was firm there ; she was
settled ; I couldn’t get at her now. “ I see she told
you I would be.” I doubtless kept down too little
my start at it, and she immediately pursued. “You
say I accept the coincidence, which is of course
prodigious. But such things happen. Why shouldn’t
I accept it if you do ? ”

“ Do I ? ” I smiled.

She began her work in silence, but she presently
exclaimed : “I’m glad I didn't meet her ! ”

“ I don’t yet see why you wouldn’t.”

“ Nor do I. It was an instinct.”

“ Your instincts ” — I tried to be ironic — " are
miiaculous.”

“ They have to be, to meet such accidents. I
must ask you kindly to tell her, when you return her
gift, that now I have done the picture I find I must
after all keep it for myself.”

“ Giving no reason ? ”

She painted away. “ She’ll know the reason.”

Well, by this time I knew it too ; I knew so many
things that I fear my resistance was weak. If our
wonderful client hadn't been his wife in fact, she
was not to be helped to become his wife in fiction.

473

THE TONE OF TIME

I knew almost more than I can say, more at any
rate than I could then betray. He had been bound in
common mercy to stand by my friend, and he had
basely forsaken her. This indeed brought up the
obscure, into which I shyly gazed. “ Why, even
granting your theory, should you grudge her the
portrait ? It was painted in bitterness.”

“Yes. Without that ! ”

“ It wouldn’t have come ? Precisely. Is it in
bitterness, then, you'll keep it ? ”

She looked up from her canvas. “ In what would
you keep it ? ”

It made me jump. ” Do you mean I may ? ”
Then I had my idea. " I’d give you her price
for it ! ”

Her smile through her glasses was beautiful. " And
afterwards make it over to her ? You shall have it
when I die.” With which she came away from her
easel, and I saw that I was staying her work and
should properly go. So I put out my hand to her.
” It took — whatever you will ! — to paint it," she
said, “ but I shall keep it in joy.” I could answer
nothing now — had to cease to pretend ; the thing
was in her hands. For a moment we stood there,
and I had again the sense, melancholy and final, of
her being, as it were, remotely glazed and fixed into
what she had done. “ He's taken from me, and for
all those years he’s kept. Then she herself, by a

prodigy ! ” She lost herself again in the wonder

of it.

“ Unwittingly gives him back ? ”

She fairly, for an instant over the marvel, closed
her eyes. " Gives him back.”

Then it was I saw how he would be kept ! But
it was the end of my vision. I could only write,
ruefully enough, to Mrs. Bridgenorth, whom I never
met again, but of whose death — preceding by a

474

THE TONE OF TIME

couple of years Mary Tredick’s — I happened to hear.
This is an old man’s tale. I have inherited the
picture, in the deep beauty of which, however, dark-
ness still lurks. No one, strange to say, has ever
recognised the model, but every one asks his name.
I don’t even know it.

THE END

P 7 1*1 ted in Gieai Britain by R. Sc R. Ci ark, Limited, F.dinbwgh.

THE NOVELS AND STORIES OF
HENRY JAMES

New and Complete Edition. In 35 Volumes.

Issued in two styles. Crown 8 vo. js. 6 d. net per volume.

! Pocket Edition. Fcap. 87 >0. Js. 6d. net per volume.

The text used in this issue is that of the “New York” edition,
and the critical prefaces written for that series are retained in the
volumes to which they refer. While, however, many stories were
omitted from the “ New York” edition, either because they did not
satisfy their author’s later taste, or because he could not find room
for them in the limited space at his disposal, the present edition
contains all the fiction that he published in book-form during his
life. The only writings which have been excluded are a small
number of very early pieces, contributed to magazines and never
reprinted, and the plays.

LIST OF THE VOLUMES

I. Roderick Hudson.

II. The American.

III. The Europeans.

IV. Confidence.

V. Washington Square.

VI. The Portrait of a Lady. Vol. I.

VII. The Portrait of a Lady. Vol. II.

VIII. The Bostonians. Vol. I.

IX. The Bostonians. Vol. II.

X. The Princess Casamassima. Vol. I.

XI. The Princess Casamassima. Vol. II.

XII. The Tragic Muse. Vol. I.

XIII. The Tragic Muse. Vol. II.

XIV. The Awkward Age.

XV. The Spoils of Poynton — A London Life— The Chaperon.

XVI. What Maisie Knew — In the Cage — The Pupil.

XVII. The Aspern Papers— The Turn of the Screw — The Liar —
The Two Faces.

XVIII. The Reverberator — Madame de Mauves — A Passionate
Pilgrim — The Madonna of the Future — Louisa
Pallant.

XIX. Lady Barbarina — The Siege of London — An Inter-
national Episode — The Pension Beaurepas — A
Bundle of Letters— The Point of View.

XX. The Lesson of the Master — The Death of the Lion —
The Next Time — The Figure in the Carpet — The
Coxon Fund.

LONDON : MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.

THE NOVELS AND STORIES OF
HENRY JAMES

LIST OF THE VOLUMES — Continued.

XXI. The Author oflicltraffio— The Middle Years— Gi eville
Fane — Bioken Wings — The Tree of Knowledge —
The Abasement of the Northmores— The Great
Good Place — Four Meetings — Paste — Europe —
Miss Gunton of Poughkeepsie — Fordham Castle.

XXII. The Altar of the Dead — The Beast in the Jungle — Thee
Birthplace — The Private Life — Owen Wingrave —
The Friends of the Friends — Sir Edmund Orme —
The Real Right Thing — The Jolly Coiner — Julia
Bride.

XX II I. Daisy Miller — Pandora — The Patagonia — The
Marriages — The Real Thing — Brooksmith — The
Beldonald Holbein — The Story in it — Flickerbridge
— Mrs. Med win.

XXIV. Watch and Ward — LongstafTs Marriage — Eugene
Pickering — Benvolio— Impressions of a Cousin.

XXV. Diary of a Man of Fifty — A New England Winter —
The Path of Duty — A Day of Days — A Light Man
— Georgina’s Reasons — A Landscape Painter —
Rose-Agathe — Poor Richard.

XXVI. Last of the Valeiii — Master Eustace-- Romance of
Certain Old Clothes — A Most Extraordinary Case
— The Modern Warning — Mrs. Temperly — The
Solution — Sn Dominick Fcirand — Nona Vincent.

XXVII. Lord Beau p re — The Visits — The Wheel of Time —
Collaboi ation — Glasses — The Great Condition —
The Given Case — J ohn Delavoy —The Third Person
— The Tone of Time.

XXVIII. Maud Evelyn — The Special Type — The Papers-* The
Velvet Glove — Mora Montravers — Crapy Coinelia
— A Round of Visits — The Bench of Desolation.

XXIX. The Sacred F'ount.

XXX. The Wings of the Dove. Vol. I.

XXXI. The Wings of the Dove. Vol. II.

XXXII. The Ambassadors. Vol. I.

XXXIII. The Ambassadors. Vol. II.

XXXIV. The Golden Bowl. Vol. I.

XXXV. The Golden Bowl. Vol. II.

LONDON ; MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd,